


Blossoming Alone Over You

by ssquid



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Romance, and roy helps him thru it like a champ, ed has chronic pain !!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:01:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24016375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssquid/pseuds/ssquid
Summary: Evidently Ed is not okay. He hadn’t really let himself exist fully in his body since opening his eyes this morning; but here, now, in front of Roy - he can’t be anywhere else, and that’s not good. For one, his right shoulder has decided to join the hurt party something fierce, so that’s fun; but mostly, it’s that the urgent pressure behind his eyes has come back more than at full force (did it ever go away?), and suddenly Ed’s vision is swirling and blurry, a wildfire of heat slapping across his nose and cheeks.Oh, god.Or: Ed's hurting, and Roy's the first person to stay long enough to really see him.
Relationships: Edward Elric/Roy Mustang
Comments: 45
Kudos: 279





	Blossoming Alone Over You

**Author's Note:**

> hi omg!!! this is my fma fic in like... 12 years maybe, and its been almost that long since i've written something seriously. i think this is the first thing i've written that's been this long in literal years so please forgive me if it's bad!!! 
> 
> this was really just meant to be a way for me to try and find words for having chronic pain, but it turned into this absolute beast when i wasn't looking???? i swear i thought it was gonna be, like, 3k at most; im so sorry alshdjdshk also if it feels like the ending is rushed i really apologise; i wasn't sure how to end this monster of a fic lmao
> 
> i have arthritis and i fucked up my ankle kind of majorly and had surgery a while ago, so thats what kind of pain background im coming from!!! i hope this is relatable and cathartic for some people like it was for me, but i also totally understand if u feel like it doesn't fit ur pain story personally!! 
> 
> oh also im a humanities person and always have been so i really flew by the seat of my pants to even bring up stuff about labs teehee whoops. there's a scene where ed has an anxiety attack, though those words are never used to describe it, but if you need to please skip passed it!! it's very short - stop reading at "why can't he see" and jump back in at "Roy's here" :)
> 
> i hope you all enjoy this; i poured a lot of my heart and soul in it, and it's really dear to me now. please look out for my next stories if you like this one :""")
> 
> title from mitski's "pink in the night" cause i luv her

Something rips Ed from the tranquil dark of sleep, and for the brief moment he spends suspended in not-quite-awakeness, he isn’t sure what it is. The room around him is silent save for the thrum of quiet miscellaneous sounds of life that leak in from the world outside his house, so he probably wasn’t woken up by his alarm; he’s not even sure that he set one in the first place, as it’s Saturday, and he doesn’t have to go into the lab. He opens his eyes, takes in a breath, and moves to grab his phone off his nightstand. 

It’s when he uncurls his arm from where his whole body is wrapped up tight around a pillow that the pain hits him with the force and grace of a semi-truck loaded with cargo - something heavy, like a family of elephants. His whole body jerks, and he can see his hand spasm where it’s still extended out in the air, though he can’t quite differentiate the feeling of his fingers moving from the lightning strike of pure  _ ouch  _ that branches through every single nerve ending in his body. His breath seizes, too, catching in his chest as the pain apparently blinds his brain. 

He has enough energy and air left to squeeze out “ _ Fuck _ ”, and then he can’t do anything else except lay in his bed and try to force oxygen back into his lungs, try to restart his brain enough to uncurl his body from the position he knows is making this worse. His back throbs in two distinct places, the pain radiating out from the central points like a homing beacon; each throb resounds through his lungs, like there’s a string tied from the deep hurt an inch from his spine that wraps around his lungs and squeezes tighter and tighter with each gasping breath he manages to wrangle in. 

His whole right arm and shoulder hurt too; the scars, though long healed over, feel like they’re pulled too tight, stretched and straining across muscle and bone and the metal he can’t feel. There’s a sluggish pain crawling, slithering down his left leg, vibrating through his ankle bone; it rebounds, starting its journey over again from just above his knee. His arm and back hurt more, like knives stabbed in, twisted around over and over and over; but it’s his leg that makes it feel like his brain is frying, computer snow staticky. At least there’s pauses between the knife wounds where he could try to breathe, steel himself for the next searing pulse; there’s no moment to brace himself, though, when his leg bone feels like it’s trying to stretch itself from the inside out, like it’s breaking and regrowing and breaking again in a demented, torturous cycle. 

Through the fog settling heavy around his brain, Ed wonders if that’s what the rack felt like. If he had the energy, he’d snort at his capability to be morbid at the worst of times, but he can’t afford to use up any of his reserves if he ever wants to get out of this goddamn bed. 

“Al-,” He goes to call out, voice weak, before he remembers and feels phenomenally stupid for it. Al’s at a conference, like, 600 miles away, talking to other geniuses dedicating their smarts to helping others. Ed should know - he had had to practically beg his younger brother to go, to have fun, to not worry about Ed because he’s a big boy who could take care of himself just fine, thank you very fucking much (look who’s laughing now; well, probably not laughing, since Al would never laugh at his pain because he’s a perfect, amazing human being who loves Ed for who knows what reasons). 

The bottom line is: Al’s not here, which means Ed is going to have to get up and hobble over to the painkillers himself, maybe even make it far enough to grab his hot water bottle and heated blanket from where he’d stashed them in the living room last time things had gotten a little… Rough. 

That’s fine - that’s totally no problem. Ed can do this; the painkillers are in his bathroom, which is just across his room. Maybe ten strides total and then he’s there. Ten isn’t even a big number; Ed can count to ten passed out drunk probably, and he can definitely do it sober and wide awake, pain and uncooperative mind notwithstanding. Ed can absolutely crush ten. 

Then it’s just ten strides back out of his room, and ten more to his couch and the supplies tucked away behind it, and then he can lay there and watch something shitty and mind-numbing and try not to focus on the way that his body feels like it’s peeling apart. He can do that, no biggie. 

Except - except he can’t just sit on his couch all day and watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy for, like, the fiftieth time because Roy’s coming over. Roy’s coming over for lunch and to talk about one of the experiments they’re running at the lab right now, and Ed doesn’t know what time it is or how long he has until Roy gets here; and he’s not dressed and he definitely hasn’t had the coffee he needs in order to get his brain at the right level of functioning to be able to handle Roy’s stupid propensity for teasing arguing filled with SAT level vocabulary -  _ shit.  _

Roy, who’s been his team leader for the past two years and also the object of Ed’s stupid, persistent crush. Perhaps, though, crush isn’t the best word for what he feels. Ed’s not a kid, and Roy isn’t just some passing infatuation. For months now, Ed has been falling deeper and deeper into his own feelings just from watching Roy be a good person and do it while looking like fucking  _ that.  _ He’s also wicked smart, which doesn’t help anything. And sometimes he comes up behind Ed while he’s doing something, and Ed’ll be able to smell his cologne, and it’s all just too much. Roy’s too much. And now he’s coming to Ed’s house for the first time on the worst day Ed’s had in a while. Obviously something has it out for Ed. 

Ed and Roy have hung out plenty of times outside of work; they’ve even hung out alone together before, but they’ve never been in each other’s private sanctuaries, and this is really not how he wants to look when he invites Roy in to sneak a peek at what Ed is like when he’s leisurely enjoying the domestic life. Damn it all. Roy doesn’t like Ed like Ed likes him - of this Ed’s certain - and thinking about Roy being here, watching him be in pain, while Ed has to know what he looks like when he’s relaxing in Ed’s home and carry that with him even though Roy doesn’t view Ed as anything but platonic - that stings. Like, a lot. 

The sun is definitely up, if the light streaming through his mostly translucent curtains is any indication, but he can’t really gauge what time it could be from what he can see of outside; the hand crank on the intelligence section of his brain is broken. He’s a husk, a skeleton of himself, eroded away by the pain until all that’s left is his most basic functions; and even that he’s not much sure he can manage. 

He needs to check the time. And then he needs to get something in his system to water the pain down a little. Two steps - very easy. He’s been through worse on much less reserves; his spoons are low, but they aren’t out. He can manage just like he always does, and everything’s going to be fine. 

Reaching for his phone again in the same way he did last time feels instinctually like a bad idea. The nerves in his hand are screaming at him, and he has a feeling that if he tries to extend it all the way that it’ll go numb in a bad way - the way that takes his breath away in fear every time, no matter how many times it’s happened before. So he decides to not do the stupid thing (he can practically hear Winry saying “for once in your goddamn life”; she’d be proud that even in his own damn mind she’s somehow managed to scold him for his dumb choices), and instead rolls over closer to the edge of his mattress so that he can grab his phone with his left hand. 

Holding his phone up with both hands proves to be too much to ask of his body, and he drops it on his own face almost as soon as he gets it up in the air where he can see it. “God - FUCK,” Ed yelps as soon as the phone comes crashing down on his poor, innocent nose; truly, what did his nose ever do to anyone to deserve this kind of treatment from the universe?

Ed takes a moment to nudge the phone off of his face and then rub his nose with his left hand, letting his right rest empty and useless on the pillow next to him. That’s a good description for how he feels on the whole, actually, he thinks; completely useless and empty except for the pain boiling through him, turning his body and brain into something he doesn’t recognize. 

After a minute, or possibly more - Ed can’t track time without his brain to help - he rolls his head to the side, tapping the screen on with his left hand. He can’t remember exactly what time Roy is supposed to be coming over, but as it turns out it doesn’t really matter, since his phone vibrates with a message from the (handsome, perfect, unfair) asshole himself. Ed props his phone up on its side against the mattress with just his left hand; he thinks his right hand might be down for the count for the foreseeable future. 

**Bastard:** _ I just left my place, so I should make it to yours in approximately 40 minutes :) I’ll let you know when I arrive! _

That smiley face is so unfair; Ed bets the jerk was actually smiling when he typed that out. Or worse, he was  _ smirking _ . “Ugh. Gross,” Ed says not to Roy’s message, though the bastard would deserve that ‘cause he’s always being gross in some way or another; rather, he’s speaking to his own traitorous heart, which had the audacity to stutter just at the thought of Roy smirking. How dare Roy control any part of Ed’s body when he’s not even in the freaking room. 

Ed would reply, probably with something snarky and perfectly crafted to get on Roy’s nerves because that’s really Ed’s true talent, but he apparently now only has 40 minutes to teach his body how to approximate being a person again, and that decidedly does not leave enough time for him to also demonstrate his extraordinary skills at getting under Roy’s skin. He has to get up. 

Pushing himself up sends a jolt of heat lancing up Ed’s right arm; the source of the pain today must be his palm then, if the way his fingers go slightly numb under the weight of his leaning body is any proof. He didn’t even do anything crazy yesterday; though, to be fair, it’s usually not like he can predict why the pain spikes or when it will. If he knew that, then he would be able to prepare his arsenal of pain-helping supplies before he went to bed and not leave himself to flounder about, feeling utterly helpless. 

He manages to sit up, and then carefully eases himself up onto his two feet. The pain in his leg doesn’t bring him to his knees, which he’s supremely thankful for, but it does make him stumble on his first step and go careening into the wall. After that he focuses his brain as wholly as he can on putting one foot in front of the other, wincing as his ankle protests each time he puts pressure on it. He can hear his bones popping and creaking as he shuffles forward, and the cold in the air seeps into all his joints; he feels like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz, clanking and creaking, rusty, in desperate need of love. And an oiling. 

He’s not made of tin, though; his body reminds him of such as a wave of nausea hits once he makes it to the bathroom and can stop moving. He refuses to throw up today; throwing up means that he’ll just get shakier than he is, and he already feels like he’s vibrating out of his own skin. He also will not cry, even though he can feel the tears pressing insistently at the back of his eyes. Crying makes him feel weak and stupid, and he already feels weak and stupid enough as he fumbles around in his medicine cabinet one-handed. 

There’s an array of pain medications for him to choose from, but he knows that realistically he’s only going to be able to take what Al put in the special, easy-to-open bottles he got the other day. The usual child-proof locks happen to also be Ed-proof on days where things get really bad, and after years of watching Ed struggle to open the meds by himself (and often failing, though Ed’s not fond of admitting that out loud), Al had looked for a solution for him. On most days Ed thinks that he wouldn’t be alive if he didn’t have Al, but on days like this, days where the weight of the world and the past are slowly pulverizing Ed, grinding his bones to dust, he  _ knows _ that he wouldn’t have been able to survive without his brother. 

He grabs one of the bottles he knows has a stronger painkiller in it (not The Strongest because those are leftovers from his last time in the hospital, and they knock him out completely. He’s also a little terrified that if he lets himself take them too often he’ll start to like what the way they numb his nerves too much) and takes an amount that’s probably technically too many. But really, who’s counting - he sure as hell isn’t. 

It’s going to take at least 30 minutes for the painkillers to kick in, which is all the time he has to get ready before Roy appears on his doorstep. He wants a bath really fucking bad, but he knows that if he gets into the nice, warm, soothing water he sure as hell isn’t getting out for Roy Mustang, no matter how hot (and sweet) the bastard is. Roy and bath are two words that shouldn’t be allowed to mingle together in the same sentence, evidently, since suddenly all Ed can think of is Roy in the bath  _ with him.  _ Roy naked; Roy wet; Roy washing his hair; Roy washing other things - 

Ed’s face is on fucking fire and it’s all Roy’s damn fault. Who has any right being so irresistible? Here Ed is, bones crumbling to a fine powder, and his stupid brain is fixated on Roy Mustang, nerd extraordinaire. Roy Mustang - who would absolutely never in a million years climb into the bath with the likes of Edward fucking Elric. 

Roy truly is everything anyone could ever want, ever need, and Ed - Ed’s nothing. Roy may face the world with a mask of cool indifference, but he cares so deeply that Ed aches with the force of his compassion - his drive. Roy’s dedicated to trying his hardest to make things better, even though Ed knows he has his own shadows that lurk in his memories. Roy’s gorgeous and he knows it; and he knows how to use it, casually disarming everyone who wanders into the lab, sweeping the investors off their feet with a charming grin and just the right words. When he’s talking to Ed, he’s genuine - masks mostly gone, though he never quite reveals all of his soft underbelly. Whoever gets to see Roy, all masks tucked away and vulnerable, is sure to be a lucky person. Ed can’t admit to himself that he’s jealous of that person, ‘cause that’d be too petty of him. Roy’s also such a dork that sometimes Ed’s heart breaks; he’s only a man, and there’s only so many times he can be charmed with references before he offers his whole heart up to Roy on a silver platter. 

It’s not even just the physical differences, though that does play into it. Roy’s stunning, breathtaking, effortlessly disarming, and Ed is - what? A skeleton, stitched back to life, jagged pieces tetris’d together like a sick game? A lump of scar tissue? Too loud, too angry, too volatile, too much all the time and not enough when it matters? Too married to his work? Too dedicated to his brother, to the few friends he does have? Not gifted with a perfectly proportionate body? Weirdly colored, like a child with one fucking crayon filled in all his lines and walked away?

Roy deserves someone as magnetic as he is, though truly if there’s another Roy Mustang out there, Ed doesn’t think he could handle meeting them; one is bad enough. Regardless, Roy doesn’t know Ed. He doesn’t know Ed’s life story, doesn’t know that he secretly wants a pet just as much as Al does, doesn’t know that most days Ed has to focus on putting one foot in front of the other to fight through the sea of pain and memories just to function. 

Ed’s baseline isn’t something that he should ask someone else to deal with, much less his bad days. He knows Al loves him and will stick with him through everything, but he can’t ask some - some stranger, someone with a whole future ahead of him, to come into Ed’s life and watch him struggle to bear the weight of it all. He’s getting ahead of himself anyway; Roy probably doesn’t even want to be in Ed’s life past how much their work requires him to be, and Ed really doesn’t blame him. 

He turns the faucet on, lets the water run and heat up until it’ll be painful to keep his fingers under the flow for more than a few seconds. Once ready, he sticks his right hand and wrist under the stream, sighing quietly as the warmth eases the edge off the pain for a second. His physical therapist used to do this thing with his hand, kind of a like a massage; he wonders if he could - he digs the his left thumb into the meat of his palm, rubbing in circles, changing spots until he gets to right under his thumb and  _ fucking ow.  _ He knows he’s wincing, can see it in his mirror; it hurts and not in a particularly good way, but that’s how physical therapy was as a whole, and he always left his sessions feeling loosey goosey in the best way. 

When he quits digging into his own palm (read: when the pain gets to be too fucking much), Ed simply leaves his hand under the faucet for a little longer, attempting to force his back muscles to do something like relax. It’s not really working, but it’s also not really a surprise that there’s literally no part of him that knows how to properly do anything approximating having one iota of chill. The good news is that the heat of the water and the massage thing smoothed the knife-sharp edges of his pain enough that he doesn’t feel particularly nauseous anymore; the bad news is that he doesn’t think he can get dressed. His right hand still doesn’t want to function - closing his fingers sends a torrent of pain up his arm so fierce that it wrenches the air from his lungs like a punch directly to his diaphragm - and his back and leg are rebelling enough that wrangling clothes on and off his body might tip him over onto the floor permanently. If he fell over now he’d be stuck on the floor for who knows how long, and it would be a couple of days still until Al returned. He might just waste away, curled up on the hardwood floor, counting the dust bunnies under his bed until his brain glopped out of his head from boredom, or his lungs finally got tired of him and quit. There’s a not-insubstantial part of him that wonders if it would be for the betterment of the entire world if he was just left to serenely rot in this shitty apartment. It seems fitting. 

Maybe he has enough energy in him to change his shirt, if he has enough brainpower left to be this melodramatic. Sweatpants are a neutral enough choice anyway where Roy might just assume that Ed wears sweatpants whenever he’s hosting his lab-partner-even-though-I-might-definitely-have-feelings-for-him for a work-adjacent lunch in his apartment. He doesn’t really feel comfortable wearing his sleeping shirt to greet Roy, though, since he almost definitely sweat in it last night while he was sleeping through the beginnings of this pain fit. So, next step: shirt time. Well, actually - next step: brush his teeth and gather his hair up and out of the way into a ponytail with as minimal groaning as possible; next, next step: shirt time. 

He picks a random sweatshirt from his closet that doesn’t look too ratty and smells nice and clean, and he tugs it on after bullying his way out of his sleeping shirt. If there’s one thing he’s gotten really good at, it’s changing shirts one-handed; it only takes him a few seconds, and then he’s using the momentum of his success to scuttle out of his room - grabbing his phone on the way - and shuffle into his kitchen. Once he sits down, he won’t be able to gather the energy to get back up until Roy arrives, so he forces himself to choke down 2 glasses of water and start a pot of coffee. 

He knows he could just - text Roy, tell him not to come over. He could tell him he got sick, or that something came up; Roy wouldn’t hold it over him, he knows that. But for one, Roy’s apparently already on his way over, using up his ridiculously overpriced gas and precious time to come to Ed, and Trisha Elric didn’t raise an inconsiderate jerk of a son. He doesn’t waste other people’s time and resources if they don’t deserve it, and as much as Roy could piss Ed off, he hadn’t done anything wrong to him. 

As loathe as he is to admit it, as well, he really doesn’t want to be alone today. He could handle being alone - had handled it - but now he knows what it’s like to have someone else offer you a hand when your body is eating itself from the inside out, layer by layer. It’s so much easier for the utter helplessness to creep in, to wriggle its way into the far reaches of his brain when he only has the pain for company. The darkness is that much darker when there’s no warmth of another body by your side. It’s selfish of him to ask Roy to fill that role for him, to ask him to offer his comfort up when he doesn’t know what he’s getting into, but Ed  _ wants  _ so badly to be handled with affection and love. He doesn’t text Roy. 

Food would probably make him feel better - no, scratch that. Food would definitely make him feel better; it would make him feel less like his muscles are going to wobble and drip right off his body in the next second. But getting food means bending down to rummage through his fridge or stretching up to look through his cabinets (because he lives with a freak of nature who’s ridiculously tall - Ed’s the normal one, okay), the sheer idea of which has Ed’s body sending signals of distress to his brain. Ed can just wait until Roy gets here and then suggest they order something - or something. Anything that means he doesn’t have to cook. 

Ed makes it the 15 paces into the living room and manages to heave himself onto the couch - the glorious, cloud-like, exquisitely heavenly couch. This couch was his graduation present to himself (well, his congratulations on the doctorate present to himself, really, but he it’s not that big of a deal) and he has never been happier with a decision. 

The TV remote is conveniently laying next to his left thigh, so Ed reaches over and smacks the power button; he doesn’t bother browsing through the channels or even opening his eyes to see what’s on. The soft noises from the TV give his brain some stimulus to focus on besides the pain jackknifing through him, but he doesn’t particularly have it in him to try and pay attention to the visuals. He listens and breathes, losing himself in simply filling his lungs with air at regular, rhythmic intervals until Roy gets here. This is gonna be fine; Ed’s survived way worse. Right?

**___________**

  
  


With his eyes closed and mind empty - as empty as his overachiever brain is capable of being - Ed isn’t capable of keeping track of the passage of time; so, when his phone buzzes quietly from its position atop his right thigh, Ed’s body lurches in a startled half-jump, half-full body jerk. His muscles tense up so abruptly and so fiercely that it sends a freshly renewed wave of pain crashing over Ed, sweeping Ed’s feet out from under him and whiting out his thoughts. 

He can’t let himself get pulled out to sea, can’t go limp and sink to the bottom of the ocean even though he so desperately wants to. Roy’s probably here. He’s probably waiting downstairs, and Ed’s nosy first-floor neighbors are probably peeking out their windows from between the curtains and wondering who this well-dressed, put together man could possibly be visiting. 

Ed briefly wonders if his neighbors would ever think someone that looks like  _ Roy  _ would even talk to the likes of Ed, much less come to see him. They probably think Roy’s here to hang out - if you know what he means - with the cute, sweet girl that lives across the hall; she’s nice, unlike Ed, and she’s very pretty and always smiles at him when they run into each other in the hallway. She even looks like she means the smile, most of the time. Ed would be shocked that Roy’s here for him, too, if he didn’t already know the man. 

Anyway - he can’t let himself wallow any more than he already has; a glance at his phone and the  _ I think I’m at the right building; there’s no rush in coming down, though!  _ confirm that Roy is indeed probably waiting for him to come let him in. Ed lets himself entertain an alternate reality where he texts his downstairs neighbors and one of them lets Roy in, shows him up to Ed’s apartment and saves him the - literal - pain of going down the stairs only to have to climb up them again, but. Sadly, the real world is oh so cruel, and his downstairs neighbors would absolutely rather feed him to their hulking beast of a dog than do him any favors this century. 

So, down the stairs. Open the door. Say hi to Roy. Lead him back up the steps. Open another door. Collapse on his couch and never get up again. Do all of that while pretending he isn’t weighing the pros and cons of cutting off two of his own limbs - totally doable, not daunting at all; Ed definitely, absolutely doesn’t wish Al was here to help him so intensely that his heart hurts just as bad as his arm and leg; it might even hurt more. 

It’s fine - everything is fine, and if he says that enough times then he can maybe even convince his stupid, pragmatic brain to believe it. The receptionist at the lab is always telling Ed about the powers of manifestation; maybe this is the moment where her bullshit finally works, and he can just. Manifest a fully functioning,  _ normal  _ body. Or Al. Either one works. 

Shockingly enough, no matter how hard he clenches his eyelids shut, or tries to make the whirring gears in his brain turn faster, neither of his two wishes pop into existence in the next few seconds. It figures; that’s pretty par for the course for his life so far. 

If Ed wallows in his apartment for long enough, then maybe Roy will get the message and go back to his own, probably substantially nicer living quarters. He might even have an actual  _ house _ . Knowing Roy, though, he would probably just call the cops and have ‘em bust down Ed’s door - out of, like, revenge for leaving Roy standing on his front porch in the chilly air or some shit. 

Ed would definitely like to not have to pay for another front door, and he would like even more to not have Al’s Ed-is-being-impolite radar go off - even 600 miles away Al would just know somehow; Ed has given up trying to figure it out - and then face a scolding (which is usually 20% actual reprimands and 80% gentle guilt-tripping; and it always works, damn him); so, turns the TV off, then swings himself off the couch as delicately as he can, leveraging most of his weight up with his left arm. 

It’s relatively smooth-ish sailing until he’s out of his front door, standing at the top of the staircase that leads out of the apartment building. The door to the outside is permanently locked from the inside; he can just about see the fuzzy shape of Roy’s silhouette through the small pane of frosted glass on the top of the door. Logically, he knows that the staircase isn’t that long; he climbs it almost every fucking day - this should be easy, something his body can just do without him thinking about it. But in this moment the stairs might as well be a mile long, twisting and laughing at him, at his stupid, patchwork body. 

He will not be bested by fucking stairs. Not today, not ever. 

But he will cling to the wooden railing, let it creak under his weight as he leans on it with each careful step. His left knee burns, and his ankle is refusing to bend far enough to take the steps normally; he’s doing it though, and his body remembers to breathe while he goes, which is good because he absolutely would not have remembered to do that himself. 

It’s easiest to take the steps one at a time, to plant both feet firm on each step and lead down with his left, then start all over again; so he does, even though it makes him feel even more like a newborn foal taking its first, wobbly steps. If it means that he isn’t going to eat absolute shit down the stairs right in front of Roy, then he’ll take it. He’s also not sure his body is literally capable of doing anything more than this, but that’s beside the point. 

Then, the front door is right there, in arms reach; and he’s only slightly out of breath and his body only slightly feels like a mass of jiggly, half-set jello. He wrenches the door open with his left hand - he won’t admit that he sags his weight against the door frame to greet Roy. You can’t make him. 

Roy’s looking idly down at his phone, expression wholly neutral; but when the door opens in front of him and he looks up to see Ed, a smile blooms across his face. Ed’s heart is tugged into his throat, like there’s fishing wire cast from Roy’s mouth and hooked in Ed, like the petals of the first spring flower unfurling to greet the warmth of the sun. 

Roy looks happy - like, genuinely happy, not the fake kind he wears when they have meetings with the boss or when that one sleazy department head stops by to try and schmooze a date out of Roy. Is this happiness for Ed, or - ? No, something good must’ve happened to Roy on the way over, or he just remembered something funny. That’s gotta be it. 

“Hey!” Roy greets, smile dimming not even a fraction. His eyes crinkle up at the corners with the force of it, and his hair is ever so slightly tousled, as if a strong breeze had blown in right before Ed yanked open the door; fuck - what the hell is he being cute for? 

Ed manages to wrestle a hoarse, “Yo,” out of his throat, pushing down the  _ what the fuck is your problem; who did you get all dolled up for; why do I like it??  _ that’s trying its very hardest to claw its way out of his traitor of a mouth. He must do an okay job, since Roy isn’t looking at him like he’s got two heads. He’s about to take a step back, let Roy in and then steel himself to climb the stairs at something other than a glacial pace, when Roy pulls a paper bag out from behind himself that Ed hadn’t yet noticed. 

“I stopped by that bakery that Riza brings us breakfast from sometimes. I know their muffins are your favorite; or - well - you seem to like them well enough when Riza brings them in, and I thought that you probably hadn’t eaten yet today, since you said on Friday that Alphonse is out of town, and I know that food often isn’t your top priority.” Roy sucks in a breath, eyes wide and mouth slanting oddly sheepish. Is he - embarrassed? “Anyway - the point is - food. For you. Ah, where are my manners - thank you for having me over. I’m sorry to impose.” 

He’s smiling again, the bastard, and he should look out of place on Ed’s doorstep, windswept and clutching a bag full of fucking muffins - but he doesn’t, and Ed doesn’t know what to do with that. He doesn’t know what to do with anything, apparently, because Roy is too fucking  _ nice  _ and he brought him his favorite  _ muffins  _ and Ed is so, so weak for hot men who buy him delicious, sugary breakfast for no reason other than pure kindness. 

The idea that Roy paid attention to what Ed did and didn’t like - even about the little things like food preferences - was sort of deeply overwhelming. Of course Roy was observant; he had to be, since he was the one out there sweeping donors off their feet with wit and unexpected political prowess. But Ed had never considered that Roy would pay attention to him for any reason that wasn’t born out of annoyance, or reversely - politeness; Ed didn’t think that Roy thought of him, like, ever besides inside the lab, honestly. They were friends - or, at least Ed thought they were friends, but that didn’t mean Roy had to do things like remember which muffins he liked the best or be  _ kind  _ to him, what the fuck. Nice is one thing; kind is another entirely. 

Evidently Ed is not okay. He hadn’t really let himself exist fully in his body since opening his eyes this morning; but here, now, in front of Roy - he can’t be anywhere else, and that’s not good. For one, his right shoulder has decided to join the hurt party something fierce, so that’s fun; but mostly, it’s that the urgent pressure behind his eyes has come back more than at full force (did it ever go away?), and suddenly Ed’s vision is swirling and blurry, a wildfire of heat slapping across his nose and cheeks. 

Oh,  _ god.  _

He tries to duck his head as quickly as it happens, hoping against all hope that Roy won’t have noticed, but he should have known that the universe would not be so kind to him. 

“Ed - ? What’s - What’s wrong? Did something happen?” Roy squeaks out in a quiet, distressed voice, cracking like there’s something doing its damndest to block the sound from coming out of his throat. The hand that’s not clenched tight around the bag of muffins comes up, as if to touch Ed, but it stops just short of his shoulder. 

This is - this is fucked up. Ed doesn’t cry like this; he didn’t cry when he got injured in the first place, and it’s pointless to cry over some aches and pains like a total wimp, but he’s just so tired. He’s so tired, and Al isn’t here, and Roy is being  _ nice -  _ so really, if it’s anyone’s fault, let the record show that it should be Roy’s. 

Ed leans a little more of his weight against the door frame, just enough that he can let go of the door itself and scrub at his face with his left hand. He swipes his right wrist back and forth across his eyes as well, trying to rub the tears out of existence. It’s not working, but he sure as hell isn’t gonna stop trying. 

“I’m f-fine. It’s - ” Ed gasps a little through the stutters, fighting to get his lungs to stop doing that hitching thing they love to do when he cries (it’s a losing battle). “S’nothing. S-sorry.”

“I’m not the best at feelings,” Roy’s voice is quiet, gentle; even through the tears cutting tracks down his face, Ed snorts, which brings back a glimmer of the smile that had fallen off of Toy’s face. “But this… This doesn’t look like nothing, Ed.” He doesn’t ask Ed if he’s okay; it’s fairly obvious that he’s hit very much  _ not okay.  _

Ed just keeps scrubbing at his face as ferociously as he can manage with less-than bare minimum functioning in his right hand. “It’s - I’m... It’s whatever. Ya d-don’t gotta worry your pretty little head ‘bout me. I can - I can handle myself.” 

Roy seems to perk up a little at the pretty comment - which was not something Ed really meant to say but he’s not thinking very clearly, if at all, so sue him - but he looks doubtful of the latter part of Ed’s little speech, which is Bad News Bears for Ed. 

“Okay… Sure. Whatever you say.” Ed’s eyes narrow - which cuts down his already less than optimal field of vision even more, but he doesn’t need to see Roy’s face to tell him off. He opens his mouth, ready to ask Roy where the hell he gets off, but then Roy is nudging him to turn around with a hand on his shoulder, gently urging him to step inside the building so Roy can follow. 

“Why don’t we go up to your apartment, and we can eat some of the scrumptious sugar-comas you so fondly call muffins while we discuss the particulars of exactly how okay you may be.” Roy had dipped to speak directly in his ear, smooth voice trickling calm through Ed like the sound of the low creek by his childhood home. 

Roy isn’t quite hitting his maximum manipulative potential, that’s for sure, but he is nudging, assuaging Ed’s ruffled edges smooth before Ed can blink. There’s the soft touch of fingertips to his lower back, and he hears the front door quietly shutting; then, it’s just him and Roy breathing in the still of the hallway. All of Ed’s lines are tense - he can’t help it, not with Roy probably watching him, waiting for him to start walking - and he knows that tensing his muscles up just makes things worse, but he can’t get his body back under control; his marionette strings are slipping through his grasping fingers with every second that Roy’s gaze burns a hole through his back, with every stupid fucking tear that drips down his chin. 

The stairs are warped by the water still impeding his line of sight, but Ed doesn’t much care anymore; he’s already reached pretty much ultimate levels of embarrassment with Roy now, so why not add ‘eating total shit falling up his own damn stairs’ to the list? Who the hell even just starts crying like that; who dumps their shit on other people like that? Most importantly - why won’t it fucking _ stop _ ?

The first step is fine, the second one marginally okay, but his knee gives out on the third and he’s wobbling before he can scramble to catch himself with the railing. He feels utterly weightless for a second, his heart floating in the cage of his ribs, but then Roy’s there, one strong hand around his elbow and the other arm wrapped firm around his waist. 

Roy doesn’t say anything - thank the god Ed doesn’t believe in - and he doesn’t look at Ed, or try to force Ed to look at him; nonetheless, Ed thinks he can feel the concern rolling off Roy in waves. That’s fine - he can be concerned all he wants (Ed doubts he’s really concerned for  _ Ed _ ; he’s probably just worried about having Ed trip and fall to his death on the stairs, and how annoying it would be to convince the cops that he didn’t push Ed; he probably just doesn’t want to find a replacement for him in lab, lazy asshole), so long as he doesn’t do something stupid like ask Ed if he’s okay, or demand answers. 

They go up the stairs together, slow and steady, now that Roy’s pretty much holding Ed up; Ed’s heart is beating stupid fast, and it’s easy to tell himself that it’s because of the close call and the effort it’s taking to get up the stairs in one piece - or as close to one piece as Ed can ever manage, seeing as he’s really just a lot of small pieces glued back together; though convincing himself of that is another thing entirely.

If Ed had more energy he would definitely use it to be embarrassed about how long it takes them to get to the top of the stairs as a unit, but as it is, all of his available energy is spent in directing the screaming bundle of bones and meat he calls his body towards the couch. He careens into the fabric with all the grace of a fish flopping around on land; or, he would have, if Roy hadn’t been there to gently lower Ed down. He doesn’t let go until Ed’s fully seated, and even then his hands linger for a second, hovering just above Ed as if he’s going to suddenly collapse. 

Eventually, though, Roy pulls his hands back, and runs them raggedly through his hair. It leaves his hair even further mussed, yet he’s still stunning, standing in Ed’s tiny living room, boxed in by the ridiculous amount of plants Al has collected. He doesn’t seem to notice Ed’s eyeing him, which is good because he doesn’t need an ego any bigger than the one he already has, thank you very much. 

“I, ah,” Roy licks his lips, and Ed’s heart  _ drops _ . “I left the muffins downstairs. I’ll just go get them, shall I?” 

Roy’s darting out the door before Ed can even say anything, which is pretty amusing considering Roy’s usual preferred speed of moving isn’t anything faster than ‘snobby, lazy saunter.’ Also, who in the fresh hell says shit like ‘shall I’ anymore? 

Ed doesn’t have much time to ponder over Roy’s idiosyncrasies because Roy is back in a flash, the tantalizing smell of muffins following him in; it’s good to know that Roy has the capability to be shockingly quick, yet for some reason simply chooses never to be so. It’s also comforting to see that he’s a little out of breath; the bastard needs to have a little humanity added back into his ridiculously perfect equation every now and again. 

Though the light panting quickly derails Ed’s brain, which is more than unfortunate. Would Roy pant like that in a … more pleasurable setting? Would he let himself get caught up in it? Would he let his masks fall completely - would he break his facade, or would he build a new one, just for Ed, just for  _ them - _

No - absolutely not. Ed will not think about this, especially not when he’s still sweating from climbing the stairs and the skin of his cheeks is still stretched tight from the salt of his drying tears. Speaking of which, it appears that they’ve finally stopped falling, which is one of the only graces he’s gotten today. 

Of course, Roy has to go and ruin it. 

Roy’s looking at him now, delicately, which - which Ed really doesn’t like. He’s not  _ delicate.  _ He’s still Ed, still entirely himself, and one bad day, one batch of tears doesn’t change a damn thing. The force of the gaze presses down on Ed’s chest, fingers wrapped deathly tight around his lungs. He’s overwhelmed; he was overwhelmed before, by the door, but now he feels out of place in his own home. He doesn’t know what to  _ do -  _ what the right course of action is for when you’ve just cried in front of your handsome coworker - who you secretly want to be much more than a coworker with - and now he’s looking at you like  _ that.  _

“Quit lookin’ at me like that.” Ed snaps, eyes squinted and arms folded across his chest. He aims a scowl Roy’s way. “I’m  _ fine _ ; there was somethin’ in my eye - that’s all.”

Roy blinks, looking as startled as Ed thinks he ever gets, before he smirks. “Looking like what?” His tone is cool, cocky - everything he knows sets Ed on the fucking edge. “I was simply wondering: did they lower the ceilings in here just to make the almighty Edward Elric feel tall, or have they always been this - ah, what’s the word I’m looking for? Oh right - short.”

“You - you complete fuckin’  _ rat bastard,”  _ Ed screeches; he’s going to rip that calculated smirk right off of Roy Mustang’s face and then shred him to pieces, and the cops are never going to find a hint of evidence; not a  _ smidge _ . “How fuckin’  _ dare _ you - in my own house - I’ll show you smaller than a pea, you  _ asshole - !”  _

Ed goes to vault himself off the couch and show Roy just how “small” his fists are, pain be damned, but he blinks and then Roy is right in front of him, one hand on his shoulder and the other holding a perfect looking muffin right at Ed’s eye level. Roy’s smirk is serenely neutral, but his eyes are warm, just like his hand. 

“I had thought about getting blueberry, but I’ve seen you devour chocolate bars whole on no less than ten occasions; I figured chocolate would be a safe bet, as well. I do hope you find it to your taste.” The muffin stayed aloft until Ed, entirely bewildered, reached up to take it with his left hand. Roy held eye contact with Ed, smirk softening into a small smile, until Ed grew too flustered and broke it in favor of focusing all his attention on the muffin. 

Had he just been - swindled? Manipulated? Played. He had just played right into the (warm, soothing, nice) palm of Roy’s hand, and he kind of - liked it? Maybe like isn’t the right word, but he definitely feels more calm. Confused, yes; but his heart no longer feels like he went to take a step only to have the floor vanish out from under him. He should probably feel betrayed that Roy would even think to try and play him like a fiddle, but it’s just so freakin’  _ Roy  _ to coax him back into comfort by riling him up that Ed is oddly flattered. 

He’s more than a little embarrassed that he’s so predictable, but the fact that Roy went through the effort to draw Ed into a space he knew he felt safe in - well. Ed’s kind of overwhelmed by that, too. Roy must have taken too long of a sip of niceness juice today or something; that’s gotta be it. 

He hopes Roy doesn’t notice the way his face is probably doing a valiant impression of a lobster right about now; with any luck, Roy will think it’s a leftover effect of the tears, but Ed came to terms with his chronic plague of complete and utter unluckiness years ago. If Roy notices, he doesn’t say anything, and Ed purposefully doesn’t look up, so he’s blissfully none the wiser. 

The muffin is good; really good, as they always are. He tells Roy as much. “S’good,” Mouth full of muffin, cheeks red - Ed’s sure he paints quite the picture. “...Thanks, you didn’ have t’get me ‘nything.” His voice is still tinged nasally, and Ed hopes Roy will do him another favor and ignore that, too. 

“I know,” Roy says. “But I wanted to. May I?” He’s gesturing at the spot next to Ed on the couch. 

“Oh - shit,” Ed does his best to scoot over and make some room, shrugging his shoulder; and then trying to hide his wince because of course he’d forget which one was bothering him in the face of Roy’s smile. “Yeah - f’course. Make yourself at home ‘n shit.” 

Roy smiles, coy and genuine and too fucking much, and then somehow manages to twist plopping himself down on the couch into something elegant and provocative. The bastard could teach classes on how to turn every mundane thing into a perfect little bite-sized tease; Ed wouldn’t pay for the class with his own money because Roy absolutely doesn’t need Ed’s hard-earned cash, but he would consider auditing the course if it was free. 

“You have always had such a way with words,” Roy’s saying, smile tingeing on a smirk. “I quite envy you for that.”

Ed snorts, remembers too late that he still has a bounty of muffin crumbs in his mouth, and then resigns himself to picking up the ones he’s sprayed around the room at a later date. “Yeah, right - like I’m supposed to believe Roy Mustang, Mr. Walking Dictionary himself, would ever really be jealous of how anyone else speaks. You’re not foolin’ me.” 

“I’m sure I have no idea of what you could possibly mean.” Today, Ed has made the delightful discovery that fake innocence looks deeply unsettling on Roy; he absolutely will be bringing this knowledge out at a time beneficial to him in the future. 

“Mhm, sure. And I’m fuckin’ bigfoot. Anyone can live in a made-up world if they wanna.”

Roy gasps deeply, slapping a hand to his collarbones in a perfect clutching-his-pearls pantomime. God, what a  _ dork.  _ “Why, Mr. Elric _ \-  _ I am deeply wounded that you wouldn’t confide in your dear friend about such important matters. How long have you and Mr. Bigfoot been together?”

“Wh - what the  _ fuck,  _ Mustang?” Ed splutters, eyes as wide as saucers. Roy’s doing a stand-up job of not laughing, but his lips are twitching at the corners like they always do when he wants to smile but isn’t letting himself; half of Ed wants literal death, and the other half wants to join Roy and laugh himself silly. 

“You don’t have to be bashful, dear Ed,” Roy’s facing is sliding into mock-seriousness now; Ed’s maybe a little scared. “I just have one very important question.”

“Uh,” eloquent as always, Ed. Roy’s looking right at him; were his eyes always such a deep black? “Yeah, sure. Shoot.”

“You  _ have _ been using protection haven’t you? You’re much too young to be burdened with a child. Even a remarkably tall, hairy child.”

Roy’s looking at him, serious face still firmly plastered on, and all Ed can do for a solid 15 seconds is blink back at him; he’s sure he looks stupid as hell, but, like,  _ what the fuck?  _

But then - then the giggles are bursting out of him; Roy’s mask cracks and he’s cheesing like the biggest goofball on the entire planet, and Ed couldn’t stop his uproarious laughter if he wanted to. Luckily, he doesn’t much care to. 

“Who are you,” Ed gasps between laughs, body angling sideways to look at Roy better. “And what in the hell have you done with Roy Mustang?”

Roy shrugs, as if that explains everything; he’s still smiling, and he shifts closer to Ed in turn. “Maybe I’ve been surreptitiously collecting jokes to launch my own Netflix comedy special behind your back this whole time, and I just now decided to see if my jokes were successful with a younger crowd.”

Roy’s right arm is bent across the top of the couch, his head nestled in the palm of his hand. Ed is gallantly doing his very best not to notice how the position places Roy ever so slightly leaned towards Ed; nor is he noticing the bulge of Roy’s bicep under his tight shirt. He’s  _ not _ . 

“Yeah? What’s it called?” Ed smirks back; this is fun - this is familiar. 

“Brokeback Mustang: The Roy Mustang Special.” Roy deadpans immediately, eyebrows pulled down low and serious; until Ed bursts back into full-body laughter, which Roy joins in with, snickering into his shirt sleeve. 

“That's the,” Ed has to pause to breathe, sides spasming, “the absolute  _ worst  _ name for a show ever. Who the hell would watch that?”

“Sexually deprived housewives;” Roy begins, looking way too pleased with himself. “Lonely gay men; anyone who appreciates debonair, handsome men standing on stage making bigfoot jokes.” He pauses, looks as if he’s thinking something over. “My aunt, too, most likely.”

Ed makes a quiet humming noise in the back of his throat; now that he’s not actively laughing, the ache is blanketing his body once more. It’s not as bad, though, with Roy here to talk him into a light distraction. 

“That’s nice of her,” Ed says. “I don’t have an aunt - or, uh, any non-sibling relatives, actually, but. Al would for sure watch anythin’ I was in, if that’s what I wanted. Al’s great like that.” 

Some people get annoyed, or bored, when Ed goes on his Al Tangents (patent pending), but Roy’s just listening, soft smile settled back on his face. Ed’s been seeing a lot of that look today, though he’s never seen Roy look like that in the lab. Weird. 

“No parents?” Roy’s voice is pitched almost tentative, like he doesn’t know if this is something he should be asking about, and he’s ready to backpedal if Ed takes offense. People are always hesitant to ask once he mentions his parents, which Ed gets, he does, but - more than not being able to talk about it, he simply chooses not to ‘cause he hates the inevitable piteous way that everyone looks at him; like he’s some abandoned, teary-eyed, whimpering puppy. 

He thinks he can trust Roy not to treat him like that, though. He hopes he can. 

He flaps a hand in Roy’s general direction, wincing lightly at the twinge it draws from his sad joints. He hope Roy gets that the gesture is supposed to mean ‘you’re fine, don’t worry’, and not ‘get out of my house right fucking now’. “Yeah; zero parents, if you would believe it.” In case Roy didn’t cotton onto his (very transparent, totally not vague at all) olive-branch hand flails, he shoots a small smile Roy’s way. Roy’s shoulders relax just so. 

“Huh,” Roy starts. He’s constructed a troublingly convincing casual facade; Ed knows him just well enough to know that he’s faking. “Fancy that. Me too.”

“Oh, shit,” Ed winces; figures that would be why Roy didn’t treat him with kiddie gloves. “Hell - I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” if Roy was the type to hand-flap, Ed guesses he would be doing it right back at Ed. “Well, not fine, but. You get what I’m so inelegantly trying to say.” Ed did. “I have very little memories of either of my parents; it’s really just flashes nowadays. Every once and a while something sparks a forgotten memory, and if I reach back hard enough I can still pull a few memories to the surface, but it’s like… Every day the waters get murkier; the image gets distorted further and further. It’s all tangled together; I can’t even be sure if I’m truly remembering things as they took place, or if my brain has crafted images of my parents to fit the typical nuclear family I thought I should have in my younger years. It’s like - it’s as if I’m standing at the edge of a lake, and if I focus my eyes just enough, I can see under the water’s surface, but it’s too dark to see very far past that; most days all that looks back at me is a sick image of myself. If you asked me what their faces looked like I’m not sure I’d be able to tell you without first looking at a picture.”

Roy’s still leaning faux-casually against the back of the couch, but he’s no longer making direct eye contact; he’s carefully poised, tense, like a vulnerable prey caught in a lion’s den, ready to bolt the second the lion makes a move. Ed aches for this man; Roy may, obviously, feel like he’s the exposed one here, but if he looked down he would see Ed’s heart thumping away in the palms of his hands. Roy has power over Ed that he must be entirely unaware of. 

Ed goes to say something, anything, to reassure Roy, to ease the hurt that so obviously plagues him because the depth of Roy’s pain spears through Ed, guts him, but Roy is rolling his shoulders back, shaking off the layer of melancholy that had settled over him like the first fall of powder-white snow in winter. 

“My apologies for the dramatics - it hardly matters much, anyway. My aunt basically raised me after my parents died. She could have done, well, anything else, but she chose to step in and fill the role of parent for me; I’ll never be able to find the words to tell her how much I appreciate her. Though, I think she wouldn’t particularly enjoy hearing my heartfelt words of gratitude. She’d probably laugh it off or take a swing at me to avoid acknowledging her own kindness; she’s rather like you, in that way at least.” Roy’s eyes whip back to make eye contact with Ed once more, smirk sliding sly and teasing. 

Ed sputters. “I - I don’t - I’m not  _ kind,  _ what the fuck, Mustang -”

Roy chuckles, and his face screams ‘see what I mean?’ even though he doesn’t say as much, and if he doesn’t take his smugness back in the next 5 seconds Ed’ll show him exactly how many things are punchable offenses in the Edward Elric Book of Laws and Rules™. 

Roy ignores him, trucking on with that fucking smirk still on his pompous fucking face, and it just pisses Ed off more; he knows Roy’s doing it on purpose and that just ruffles him up even further. “My aunt owns a bar - a safe haven for young women who fell on hard times and were turned away by everyone else when they asked for help. My aunt raised me, but all the girls in her care - they taught me practically everything I know.” Here, Roy sighs feelingly. “And they never let me get away with  _ anything. _ I always thought, painfully naively, that I’d be able to get the jump on them and shave  _ their  _ eyebrows off while they were giving into the dastardly wiles of madame sleep, but, alas. It was never meant to be.”

There’s approximately a million different things Edward wants to ask, but most importantly: “Your eyebrows? Like - both of them? Fully shaved off?”

“That was just an example,” Roy sniffs, nose pointed skyward. “I would certainly never allow something so undignified to be done to me, and I definitely wouldn’t still be begging my sisters to this very day for the negatives of the pictures they took as blackmail; no, siree. Not I.” 

Roy’s attempts at looking stern fall flat in the face of the grin tugging at his lips, the corners of his eyes. Ed’s laughing again before he knows it; then he holds up his hand, blocking out Roy’s eyebrows to try and picture his face without them. 

“Hmm… I dunno they mighta been onto the next big thing in fashion.” Roy bats his hand down, laughing himself, but it does nothing to deter the cheeky grin on Ed’s face. 

“I’m actually quite partial to my eyebrows, but your opinion has been duly noted.”

Roy’s still smiling, perfect pearl white teeth on display; Ed doesn’t feel like Roy expects his own sad, parent-less life story in return, but - the fact that Roy trusted him with such personal information, let Ed peak into the heart that he keeps firmly locked away in a vault, no doubt manned by vigilant guards even when he’s sleeping; that has to mean something. Even if it’s not an indicator that Roy feels the same way Ed does - and he doesn’t think it is - it’s a display of vulnerability and trust that Ed knows is especially difficult for Roy. Roy deserves to know that Ed trusts him back; besides, Al’s always going on about how Ed could stand to let a few more people in - might as well let that person be Roy. 

“My dad was a complete turd sandwich.” Roy’s grin is gone instantly, his attentive listening face back at full blast. Ed absolutely does not miss his smile; that would be  _ dumb. _ “He fucked off when I was five; Al was four-ish. I don’t really remember him; at least, I don’t remember him much in my childhood home. I do remember - he was always in his office, readin’ these huge books. You know when you’re a kid and everythin’ just seems so much bigger than you? His whole office was  _ full  _ of those kinds of books. Me ‘n Al, we used to spend a lot of time in there, teaching ourselves how to read and tryin’ our damndest to understand what the books were about. After he left we… We were just kids, ya know? We thought that if we could learn enough, catch up to him, that he would come back home faster, and be proud of us and maybe stay. For real this time - not like all the other times he came back and then left right away. But he, uh - he didn’t. If you couldn’t tell, haha.”

Good ol’ haha - conversation saver extraordinaire; though it doesn’t look much like Roy is buying his desperate attempts at indifference. Ed always thinks this next part is going to sting less, but it never does. The words clump together in his chest, a sticky, volatile ball of emotion; he clears his throat, steels his shoulders, takes a deep breath. 

“And then my mom died.” Roy looks - upset. Not pity, but real, genuine concern; it’s in the crease between his brows, how the corners of his mouth turn downwards. Ed blinks a few times; he doesn’t really - know what to do with that? With the distress right in front of him that’s all for him. People just don’t care about Edward Elric like that. “She was the best mother in the world. She was smart and funny, and she worked so hard to fill the hole my fuck-off of a father left behind. He was the love of her life, and he just - left her. She must have been so sad, but not once did she let it show to me or Al. She’s the strongest person I’ve ever known. At some point she got sick; real sick - not a cold. Al and I didn’t even know, though, not ‘til -” Ed breathes in deep, pointedly not noticing the way his breath shakes around the edges. Is Roy sitting closer to him than he was before? “Not ‘til we found her. She was on the floor in the kitchen, an’ at first we thought she was playin’ some fun new game with us, but then she wouldn’t get up and Al was just  _ screamin’;  _ he was so scared - he kept callin’ out for her and she was just. Layin’ there. Not breathin’. I didn’t know what to do; I kept thinkin’: ‘Al’s too young - he shouldn’t be seein’ a dead body; mom wouldn’t want that’, so I just - dragged him outta the kitchen and locked us in our dad’s office. There was a phone there, so I called my best friend’s granny - she’s pretty much our granny, too - and Al was cryin’ so hard I was worried he was gonna pass out on me; he didn’t talk for a while after - after that. Granny put together a funeral for mom, and practically the whole town came; everyone loved my mom. I hope she knew how much she was adored by everyone she met.

“I still wonder - if I did the right thing, you know? I knew a little bit about CPR, just in case something happened to Al or Winry - the best friend; you met her at that Christmas thing a while ago. Granny would never tell me,” Ed thinks he’s shaking again; he looks over in Roy’s direction, but his eyes are unseeing. “If I’d stayed in the room, was there a chance I coulda saved her? If I’d locked Al in and stayed with her - If I’d thought to try CPR, would Al still have a mom? If I’d just -” 

“Ed,” Roy’s cutting him off, and Ed snaps out of the haze he’d fallen back into, blinking up at him. There’s so much raw distress on Roy’s face that Ed finds himself overwhelmed for what feels like the thousandth time that day. Roy reaches out with his left hand, hesitates, and then there are soft fingertips tucking Ed’s bangs behind his right ear. The touch is so tender; Ed’s heart trembles with it. “You were a  _ child.  _ You’re brilliant and whip-smart and I’ve never seen you come across a challenge that you felt the need to back down from, but this - there are some things that are simply out of your hands, no matter how painful they are.”

Roy’s hand doesn’t leave his face right away; it lingers, bursts of warmth like the sun is kissing his face at each point of contact between them. Roy doesn’t go so far as to fully cradle Ed’s face in the palm of his hand and that’s - that’s more than a shame. Ed  _ wants.  _

“About what you said earlier,” something had been weighing on Ed ever since Roy began speaking, and now it was bubbling up out of his mouth unconsciously. “About it not mattering. Even if things turned out as okay as they could’ve, given the circumstances and everything - all that happiness and those good memories don’t mean the pain doesn’t matter anymore. It’s… It’s okay to let the bad be just as important as the good; it’s a part of you, too.” 

Shock is evident on Roy’s face, but he doesn’t pull his hand back just yet; and that’s a good sign, right? Ed doesn’t wanna offend Roy; he just thought that was something Roy needed to hear, something that maybe people didn’t tell him that often. Ed knows more than enough about being haunted by his own joy, being eaten alive by the guilt he felt when he was actually  _ happy _ ; and he knows, too, the dangers of pretending that the nightmares hadn’t taken root in his soul. If you try to push the bad down, chain it away in a dark corner where no one else would accidentally stumble upon it, it‘ll just eat away at all the good parts surrounding it, until you’re just a carcass; until your only purpose is as a shelter for your own deepest fears. 

Ed knows the importance of facing a fight head-on, teeth bared, eyes flaming; sometimes his utter pigheaded stubbornness was the only thing that got him through. 

Roy just smiles, though, after the shock fades away, like the sun inching out from behind the clouds of a summer rainstorm. Ed is a sunflower, helpless but to turn towards Roy, bask in his warmth, bloom and grow under his attention. “How very like you - to take my clumsy reassurances and turn them back on me, yet a thousand times more meaningful. You have no idea how utterly wonderful you are.”

“I’m - I’m not…” Ed trails off. The fingers slide through his bangs once more, and Ed’s eyelids flutter without his permission. Ed’s not a damn cat; he shouldn’t enjoy being pet like one. Roy’s hand draws back, and Ed is only just barely able to stop himself from following its comforting warmth like a complete fool. When he chances a glance at Roy from underneath his eyelashes, though, he doesn’t look smug like Ed thought he would; he’s just looking at Ed, expression soft and open. 

They stare at each other for longer than Ed would like to admit, Roy’s eyes flitting back and forth between Ed’s like he’s searching for something, like there’s something there that he just can’t pull himself away from. Did Roy get even closer somehow? Why does he smell so good - like warm nights spent cozy in front the fireplace, like spice and pure  _ heat _ ? Ed’s breath is coming deeper; he wants to fall forward, bury his face in the enticing curve of Roy’s neck, let himself be held together in those strong arms. 

Ed’s eyes are traitors; they dart down to Roy’s tantalizing mouth, tracing the curve of his cupid’s bow; he thinks he could snuggle up and lie there forever, if he let himself. And then those lips are curling at the edges, molasses slow, and Ed’s forcing his eyes back up to safer regions of Roy’s face and - right, he’s been watching Ed this whole time. Fuck.

Ed clears his throat, heartbeat picking up speed so quickly he feels a little faint. All Roy sees when he looks at him right now is probably just an embarrassingly obvious, painfully gay tomato. That’s fun - maybe he’s into that shit. Probably not, but. A guy can dream, right?

“A-anyway,” curse his dumb brain and his dumb tongue for stuttering; what the hell is in the air today? If Roy has been secretly releasing, like, fucking pheromones or something this whole time, then Ed cannot be blamed for kicking his ass into the next century. “Granny took me and Al in after everything. I was eleven then. Me and Al and Winry all lived together until I left for college. You know this part - graduated high school early, got a couple degrees, yadda yadda yadda.”

Roy looks entirely too amused. “You are quite possibly the only person on the planet who could so flippantly talk about being the youngest person in the history of this country to receive his doctorate. I daresay your accomplishments are worth more than a ‘yadda yadda yadda’.”

Ed’s face is probably beet red again, but just shrugs. “I mean - it’s just goin’ to school and shit. It’s not like I was out there savin’ people’s lives or anything. S’not that impressive to spend your every waking moment with your nose stuck in a book.”

“I respectfully disagree.” Roy’s eyes are fucking  _ sparkling _ ; whose body just does shit like that? 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Ed waves him off. “So, the day I got my doctorate, my dad actually showed up out of nowhere. He came to the ceremony with Al. I knew Al had been tryin’ to get back in contact with him - we didn’t talk about it much ‘cause we think about the guy pretty differently, but I was happy for Al when he said he managed to talk to our dad again. If it makes Al happy, it makes me happy, you know?” Roy nods; his gaze is making Ed’s insides all squirmy. “I wasn’t really expectin’ to see him ever again, especially after he didn’t even come to mom’s funeral - that’s when I think I lost hope in him. Mom was always waitin’ for him; she was so certain he would come back, and he didn’t even say goodbye to her. Al says he has his reasons, which - I mean, we’ve all got reasons for the shit we do, but that doesn’t make it okay. I know he loved her, but she deserved to be treated like he did.”

God, Ed’s mouth is dry; no one ever lets him ramble like this about anything. Al’s the only one who can stand the sound of his voice for long enough; maybe Winry, too, but only on a good day. Ed’s not really judging, though; he hates the sound of his voice, too. 

Ed’s about to wrap up, finally, when he’s startled by Roy’s hand lightly settling on his arm. “You too, you know.”

“Uh,” It’s all Ed can do to blink. “Huh?”

“You deserve that, too. I don’t mean romantically, though that’s true, as well. I mean - you and Al. You deserved a father who was there for you, who loved you unconditionally. I’m sorry yours decided not to be that for you.” 

That is - not what Ed was expecting. Like, at all. Fuck; he’s all flushed and flustered again. 

“I - um - I don’t.” Ed swallows, and resists the urge to demure behind his hands like a tittering court lady in the 1600s. There’s too much to unpack here; he’s gotta paddle to shore before the whole ship up and capsizes with him onboard. “So the fucker came to my graduation. Al never said if he invited him or not, but how else would he know to come, y’know? I don’t blame Al; I think he knew something was up, and wanted to give the guy one more chance to make amends with me. He didn’t, really, though. I think he knew that I didn’t really care ‘bout his excuses. Or he was just too much of a coward to say it to my face; who knows. Ugh - you should’ve made me shut up forever ago; I’ve been going on and on for way too long.” Cue the stupid blush about all the ways Roy could possibly make him shut his mouth; also cue Roy’s dumbass smirk. 

“Oh, really? I can think of many ways I still could, if you would be so inclined as to -” 

“He said he was sorry!” Ed plows through, valiantly avoiding looking Roy in the eyes; and in the mouth, too. To be safe, he’s just gonna not look at any part of Roy. He’s got a great ceiling; it’s a shame he doesn’t stare at it more often. He should rectify that, like, right now. “And I told him it was too little too late for me, but also that I didn’t hate him - I don’t, really; that’s not what mom would’ve wanted. He took us out to dinner; real nice steak place, and he even paid. And then he disappeared again. He died soon after - real sudden; had a heart attack right on mom’s grave. I’m sure there’s something poetic about that. Granny said he had a smile on his face when she found him, so. That’s gotta count for something.”

Ed doesn’t usually like telling people things about himself ‘cause it gives them ammunition, gives them reason to think things like ‘oh wow - now it makes complete sense why he acts like that!’ and then they inevitably treat him differently, as if even looking at him is too much for their frail, weak heart. Often they end up using his own life against him, throwing it back in his face when they’re mad, or when things get a little tough; the memories already hurt on their own - he doesn’t need to cut himself open on their jagged edges trying to keep them safe from the grasping, hungry hands of all the people who think they know him better than they actually do. 

Roy isn’t like that, though - Roy hasn’t said anything like that to him, has never treated him like he’s more broken doll than person even with all the evidence pointing that way. Of course, Roy hasn’t heard everything, yet, though hearing  _ everything  _ is definitely impossible since it took Ed 23 years to live out his life so far; regardless, Roy listened, and his sadness never fell off the cliff into oversaturated pity. Roy gives him far too much leniency in the lab, letting Ed run around unsupervised even though he’s the junior-most employee with a track record for blowing things up on occasion; Roy  _ respects  _ Ed, even though Ed spends most of his time being a complete and utter shit just to goad Roy into slipping out of his many facades. Not to mention that Roy’s just plain smart, and he’s doing his absolute best to help people with everything he’s got; and he managed to assemble a supremely loyal team who would have his back through thick and thin purely because he fights for them almost every single day. 

Ed is incredibly lucky to have stumbled upon Roy and his little group, to have been invited in by that many wonderful people. Ed can’t begin to guess what he did to deserve them, to deserve their kindness, but he does know he would never knowingly do anything to jeopardize it. 

Roy makes a contemplative humming sound, and then he’s plucking another muffin out of the forgotten bag. Ed’s stomach twinges on queue; how had he forgotten entirely about the food in front of him? That’s not like him. “Thank you for telling me; I know it’s not easy to share like that. I’m not really good at it myself.” He wraps his fingers around Ed’s left wrist, pulling it towards him and squeezing just so; he plops the muffin down in Ed’s hand, and skims those same fingers up the length of Ed’s arm and back, touch feather-light. He nudges the back of Ed’s hand with the tip of his pointer finger, encouraging Ed to take a bite, then another, and another. 

Roy is silent as Ed eats, watching him with something like satisfaction written on his face, until it twists abruptly into faint remorse. Ed’s attention is mostly on the ungodly delicious muffin he’s cramming into his face, so he only distantly registers the change. Ed has his priorities down pat, okay.

“I actually do have one question, if you wouldn’t mind answering. It’s not about bigfoot this time, promise.” 

Ed squints; Roy looks almost nervous - or maybe apologetic is more accurate. Somewhere in between the two. “Okay. ‘M all ears.”

Roy hesitates, and that’s enough to ratchet up Ed’s anxiety. Roy never hesitates. He ponders, deliberates, mulls over - but he doesn’t  _ hesitate.  _ What the hell could he be about to ask? What if he’s gearing up to confront Ed about Ed’s feelings. Maybe all that touching and shit that Ed was starting to think was him flirting earlier was actually a joke; maybe he’s trying to let Ed down easy and he just can’t find the right words. Maybe he’s genuinely disgusted by Ed’s obvious infatuation; why did Ed think letting Roy into his home was a good idea - there’s nowhere for him to run. Not that he would even be able to, considering his ankle is still a tightly crumpled wad of pure ouch, but he could damn well try. Maybe - 

Maybe Roy’s squaring his shoulders and grabbing Ed’s hands in his. Maybe he’s playing with Ed’s fingers, touch tentative yet lingering. Maybe he’s frowning down at their hands, eyes glazed over, like he doesn’t even realize he’s touching Ed. Maybe he’s speaking to Ed with the most overt concern Ed has heard from him, like,  _ ever. _

“Earlier,” Ed’s heart slams into his ribcage; he’d been more than stupid to think they could just avoid this topic entirely. “What… What happened? You obviously don’t want to talk about it,”  _ If it’s so obvious then why the hell are you bringing it back up, Mustang?  _ “And normally I would be content to wait until you feel ready to tell me, but. Tell me if I’m wrong, but I was operating under the impression that things do not often bring you to tears, especially not something as trivial as muffins.”

Ed would think he was being made fun of, if it was anyone but Roy sitting in front of him, but this is just how Roy speaks; it’s infuriating that he’s endeared by it even while his heart is tap dancing its way out of his chest. 

Ed wets his lips, hangs his head to look at where Roy’s still loosely holding his hands. Ed’s left hand twitches, clings to Roy’s stupidly pretty fingers; his right hand is completely limp still. He’s sure Roy notices, and he wants to pull away and scoot closer in equal parts. “It was - is - nothing. Everyone has… Bad days. Sometimes.”

“That’s true,” Roy’s voice is so warm, so deep, dripping soothing comfort into Ed’s very soul. “But when we were walking up the stairs, you were - we - thing’s didn’t look. Normal.” Roy’s grip tightens only around Ed’s left hand. He’s too observant; Ed isn’t deserving of Roy’s eagle-eyed attention, of the spaces Roy’s carved away for him in his memory. “You looked - ” Roy’s voice drops, serious enough that Ed snaps his head up to stare at him wide-eyed. “Like you were in a lot of pain. You still do.”

Roy lets go of Ed’s right hand for the amount of time it takes him to smooth his thumb across Ed’s furrowed brow, matching frown marring his otherwise perfect face. Ed hadn’t even registered that he’d been wincing, drawing back into himself, but of course Roy had been paying enough attention to notice the signs even before he did. Roy’s fingers flitter across his brow, his cheekbones, on their way back to envelope Ed’s hand once more. 

Ed works his jaw, opens his mouth, and then closes it again, heaves a sigh from his nose. He - he just  _ can’t.  _

So, Ed smacks a crooked smile on his face, tugging his wrists back and watching with only a little forlornness as Roy let him slide his hands out of his grasp, water slipping through the rocks. “Hey - didn’t you come over so we could talk about the Jacobs experiment? I’ll just go and get the file from my bedroom.” Ed’s voice cracks, but he pushes through, swinging his head around and starting to push himself off the couch. He knows he sounds weak and desperate, like he’s running away, but that kind of is exactly what he’s doing and they both know it. 

“Ed, please.” Roy’s hand snags Ed around his left elbow. His grip is loose enough that Ed could break out of it no problem, but Roy’s basically begging, and Ed is only a man. Evidently a weak one at that. “I’m just worried about you. I care about you, and I want to make sure you’re okay. I had thought that I had demonstrated that you could trust me - that you matter to me.” 

Bastard knew exactly what he was doing - knew intimately that Ed’s biggest weakness was guilt tripping. He’d seen Al work his devil magic on Ed to get him to come home earlier than 11 p.m. at least twice a week since Ed joined his team; he knew it hit Ed in the soft, squishy part of his heart (which was his entire heart, realistically). 

“Oh,  _ fuck you _ , Mustang.” Ed snarls whipping around to glare right at Roy; his ponytail follows behind him, snapping in the air like the crack of a whip. Ed probably shouldn’t have done that, since abrupt movements are strictly a no-no when his bones are feeling sad, but Roy deserves it. This is the kind of being played that doesn’t sit well with him. 

Roy, to his credit, has the wherewithal to look slightly sheepish. “I - sorry. I shouldn’t have…” 

Ed sighs, dropping back onto the couch, and slinging his right arm across his eyes; Roy’s not the only one who has an arsenal of melodrama in his back pocket. “Everyone always does that; don’t say sorry unless you mean it. Save ‘em for later.” Ed lifts his arm up enough to eye at Roy.

Roy doesn’t say anything; he just nods, watching Ed like he’s liable to sprint out of the living room and take a running leap off his tiny little balcony any second now. He’s not entirely wrong, but his ego doesn’t need to know that. 

It’s not that Ed doesn’t trust Roy - because he does. He really, truly does. He wouldn’t have told Roy his family sob story if he didn’t feel like he would treat it with care, but it’s  _ different.  _ Ed’s pain is a daily reality; it follows him every second of every day. It steals the breath from his lungs; it scorches him from the inside; it devours him whole. He’s more than his pain, but his pain is so much of him, and it’s such an ugly part. There’s nothing romantic about Ed’s scars, and he wouldn’t want there to be - but that doesn’t stop him from wishing his slate was clean in the first place. 

No one can shoulder Ed’s pain for him, and they always want to. It’s torture - watching someone you care about watch you writhe and only be able to take the very edge off. If they don’t know then they can’t hurt for Ed, they can’t want things for him that are never going to happen. They can’t end up like Al: endlessly searching for a way to ease his older brother’s ailments, wasting his youth on someone who doesn’t deserve it. His pain is a miasma; it seeps into the pores of everyone who gets too close to him; it drags them all down until they’re a pile of jagged rubble strewn across the floor just like him. 

Ed’s body is one raw, inflamed wound. He could never ask someone to step in as his nurse, to fix his dressings and mop up his blood for him when this is all his damn fault in the first place. He has no  _ right.  _

The story isn’t even all that dramatic or special, but it’s not really about the story, after all. It’s about being so bare in front of another person, peeling back your skin and fat and muscle to show them the whites of your bones, the color you bleed. This is the part Ed has never really been good at; this is the part he’s utterly incapable of getting used to. 

Roy doesn’t want Ed - not all of him. He doesn’t know he would be getting himself into; the sleepless hours, the apathy, the fear, the  _ anger.  _ Ed is too quick to lash out even on good days, and on the bad ones he’s sharpened to a point, always on the offensive. He knows it’s all a defense mechanism to drive people off before they get close enough to do real, lasting damage, but that doesn’t mean he can help it, and that doesn’t mean that Roy would understand him. 

But then again...Roy had stayed. Roy hadn’t walked away the minute that Ed wasn’t doing okay, like so many others had. He hadn’t treated Ed like he was only worthy of care and affection on the days when things were either good or he had sufficient energy to pretend to be functioning enough that everyone could choose to believe he really was okay. Roy hadn’t even let him pretend; usually, other people didn’t want to care enough to step down into the cracks he carved for them; usually, they looked right at him, but they never  _ saw _ simply because they didn’t want to. Maybe… Maybe Roy wants to. 

There’s only one way to find out. If Roy throws him away - well, Al would come back home eventually. He had helped Ed pick up the pieces before, and he would probably be willing to do it again, though Roy might suddenly and mysteriously go missing after Ed tells Al what happened. 

Here’s to taking chances and hoping they don’t blow up in your face. 

“Al and I got in a fight,” he starts, and he knows Roy’s listening even though he can’t look him in the eyes; not yet. “About something stupid; I don’t even remember what it was. We were both teenagers and things were goin’ kinda rough. I was workin’ a lot to try and help Granny out; she didn’t ask to take in two extra mouths to feed, and I couldn’t ask her to use her savings on us anymore. I wanted to save up enough that Al could go to college even if he didn’t get the scholarships we were hopin’ for; I never doubted he would, so I’d really planned to give the money to Granny to try and pay her back for all the money she spent on us over the years. It wasn’t anythin’ big, but I figured she coulda used the money to buy a house; one without stairs - since her knees had just started to bother her - that was closer to the main part of town so she didn’t have to walk so far to go shoppin’ and things like that.”

Ed gulps; this is harder than he thought it would be - handing over your own mistakes to someone, like giving them a loaded gun and trusting them to not point it at your head and pull the trigger. 

“I had this shitty job in a kitchen at a local restaurant. I didn’t wanna be in the front of the house ‘cause - well, you know me. So they stuck me in the back, choppin’ shit up, doin’ dishes. Sometimes I bused the tables when it got real busy. The manager asked me to help with the money stuff, too, every once and a while. It was fine, except some nights I was there real late cleanin’ up and stuff. Usually it was me and some other kids, but one night there wasn’t that much to do, and they all looked so tired, so I just told ‘em to go home. Said I could handle it no problem. Only one of ‘em stayed behind; we had been gettin’ kind of close, me and him, and that night we were just joking around and stuff while I closed up. I was gonna confess to him that night. I thought -” Ed cuts himself off and shakes his head. “It’s not important. We both didn’t have cars, so after everyone else left, the parkin’ lot was completely empty, and from the front it probably looked like all the lights were off.” Ed sneaks a glance up at Roy; he looks like he might know what’s coming, but like he doesn’t want to be right. Ed lets his eyes fall away once more. “Everythin’ was normal - then there was this huge crash from the front of the house. I should’ve stayed in the kitchen and called the cops myself, but I wasn’t thinkin’ like that. Elliot looked so scared; he looked like Al did, back then, so I just - I didn’t think that they would have  _ guns. _ ”

He can hear Roy suck in a startled breath; not quite a gasp, but not insignificant. 

“Elliot was supposed to stay back in the kitchen and call for help while I went up front and tried to see what the hell was goin’ on. I saw one guy just standin’ right by the window they had busted in through, so I just started yellin’ at him; I was tryin’ to make enough noise that they wouldn’t hear Elliot talkin’ on the phone in the back. He never called, though. There was another guy hidin’ that I didn’t see, and he snuck up on me whacked me in the head with the gun. They didn’t shoot me, but they knocked me around pretty bad. And then one of ‘em left and found Elliot tryin’ to hide; they dragged him over to me, and they were pointin’ guns at us, and Elliot was just shakin’ and shit. They were asking us where the money was kept, and I wouldn’t tell ‘em. They said ‘Tell us where you keep the cash, or we’ll put a bullet in your skull’. An’ I just said ‘fuck you’.” 

“Of course you did.” Roy’s voice is hushed, and a little shaky, but Ed can hear the hint of an exasperated laugh as he speaks. “Glad to know that your complete lack of self-preservation seems to have always been a part of you.”

“‘Course it was. I’ve never pretended to be anythin’ but a contrary dick. Anyway, it was obvious Elliot was gettin’ more and more antsy; he kept lookin’ right at the gun that was pointed at him, and he looked like he was gonna barf any second. Finally, he just blurted out: ‘If I tell you where the money is, will you let me go? You can keep him; just - please let me go.’”

This time, Roy really does gasp.

“He had told me a couple times that his mom couldn’t work, and that he was the only one in his house makin’ any money. He had younger siblings who relied on him; I get it. I mean - it doesn’t mean it doesn’t fuckin’  _ suck  _ to have someone barter with your life, but. I understand. The guys didn’t take the offer, though. They just laughed, and then both of their guns were pointed at Elliot, and they were smirkin’ down at me. One of ‘em said, ‘now, see, I think you’re the hero type. I think that if you think we’ll hurt your friend here, you’ll let us do anything so that that doesn’t happen. Why don’t we test that out? If you let yourself be tied up like a good little dog, then we won’t kill your buddy. Simple as that.’ Elliot was cryin’, and he couldn’t even  _ look  _ at me. So I let ‘em. They tied me to one of the big racks in the kitchen that held the convection ovens. Elliot was tied up across the room; he just went limp, wouldn’t look up at me no matter how much I yelled for him.

“The guys left us like that, and I’m not sure how much time passed, but then there was smoke comin’ in from the front of the house, and I could hear this constant popping sound.” Ed can feel the heat creeping across his face; there’s no air in his lungs, just smoke - where did the air go? “We’d seen their faces, clear as day, and they knew we coulda pointed ‘em out in a heartbeat. They were too cowardly to finish us off themselves, so they were gonna let the fire do the job for ‘em.” Everything is so hot; Ed’s sweating; why can’t he see - when did the lights go out? Wasn’t he in his own apartment just a second ago? Wasn’t there someone with him? Wasn’t he supposed to be doing something? Why is it so  _ hot;  _ why can’t Ed  _ breathe -  _

There’s a hand on his shoulder, and then he’s being pulled in tight against a solid warmth. The hand on his shoulder slides across his back, wrapping firm around him, and there’s another hand threading through his hair; it doesn’t move, just offers sweet, tender comfort. Is he - are they swaying? 

“Hey, darling; you’re here. You’re with me, Ed. You’re not there. You’re right here, Ed; I’m here. You need to breathe for me, please, angel.” A voice is saying, calm and sure, anchoring Ed back into his body, into reality. The bubble bursts, and Ed’s gasping; his lungs expand so quickly that it hurts, like the first intake of air after spending too long submerged in water. 

That’s his living room wall across from him; it’s a soft yellow, ‘cause Al had used his puppy eyes on Ed, and Ed was a sucker. There are bright green trees swaying in the breeze outside, and his porch is littered by leaves. Ed is pleasantly warm - not searing hot - like he’s basking in a sunbeam. But - there’s something soft and wavy and dark as night tickling his cheek and his nose, and his apartment never smells this kind of good. 

Right - Roy’s here. That’s who’d been talking. They’re in Ed’s apartment, on his couch. Ed had been telling a story, and then… Actually, he’s not really sure what happened. He hadn’t told anyone this story since that day when he’d told Al and then the doctors and then the cops. Al had told Granny and Winry, and Ed had never really found the reason to go around blurting it out to anyone. Most of the time they didn’t stay long enough to give him the chance to. 

Roy’s face is all smushed up in Ed’s hair, and every breath out of his nose whispers over Ed’s ear and - he’s scarily comfortable. He could probably be content to sit like this, wrapped up in everything that Roy is, for like, forever, maybe. At least until he got hungry enough to need to find food. It would be even better, though, if Ed could feel Roy under his hands; just this once, maybe it’s okay to let himself indulge for a moment. So he wiggles his left arm from where it was pressed between their bodies, and wraps it around Roy’s ribcage; Ed lets himself melt into Roy, just this once. Just for as long as Roy will have him. 

“If,” Roy’s voice cracks, and he clears his throat before trudging on ahead. He doesn’t raise his voice louder than a murmur, like the world will come crumbling down around them if he speaks too loudly. “If it’s too much, you don’t have to tell me. I shouldn’t have pried; I didn’t think - ” He cuts himself off. The hand in his hair tightens for less than a second, then it unclenches just as fast. He sounds so guilt-ridden; Ed doesn’t want that. 

“S’okay. Sorry for freakin’ out on you.”

Roy shakes his head as vehemently as you can when you’re also trying to fuse your face to someone else’s hair. “ _ No _ , Ed, don’t be sorry. There’s nothing to be sorry for.  _ I’m  _ sorry.”

There’s obvious regret in Roy’s voice; maybe Roy needs to hold Ed just as much as he needs to be held. Ed rubs Roy’s (very strong, very  _ wow _ ) back, hoping he can soothe some of the despair out of Roy’s voice. “You didn’t do anythin’ wrong. I already told you how I feel about insincere apologies; don’t make me tell you again, Mustang.” Ed thinks that’s a tiny smile trying to bury itself in his bangs; good. All this melancholy really takes it out of you. Unfortunately, the story isn’t quite finished, and Roy’s probably not gonna like the ending. 

“It doesn’t… Get much better.” Roy pulls back just enough to look Ed in the eyes, a small, puzzled frown pulling his mouth down and eyebrows together. Fuck, he’s adorable. That’s unfair. “The story, I mean. Thought I should let you know, so you can decide if you wanna hear the rest.” 

Roy hasn’t removed himself from the hug or the eye contact, and having one-hundred percent of that focus on him is entirely too intense for Ed. If he blushes now, Roy will probably be able to feel the heat from his face, and he’ll definitely never let Ed live it down; what kind of weirdo gets all flustered just from a hot guy looking at him? Ed’s so hopeless. 

“I would listen to you tell any story, if that’s what you wanted.” Roy’s looking at him, all earnest and sweet, and there goes all of Ed’s dignity; the firetruck red flush sweeping over his face barrels right through it. What real person is that smooth? It doesn’t even sound like a line; coming from Roy, it just sounds like the truth. “I would be honored to hear the rest. If it’s not too much of a bother, however, could we stay like this? I need to feel that you’re here, with me; that you’re alive.” Ed’s sure his gobsmacked face, mouth hanging wide open, is probably not the most flattering, but. Once he’s done feeling like the whole word just tipped out of from under him, he’s going to have to scramble to pick up the pieces of his stupid, gay heart that just shattered at his feet. 

“Y-yeah. Of course you can.” Roy looks relieved? Like he thought that Ed could possibly want Roy’s wonderful, comforting warmth to leave him. Like Ed is ever going to be able to let Roy walk away from him without a chunk of his heart leaving, too, now that he knows what it feels like to be held by Roy. 

“Um. So. Fuck - where was I? Right, we were tied up, and everythin’ was on fire. I knew I couldn’t - I couldn’t leave Al like that. I couldn’t be another person that left him without even sayin’ goodbye. If I could get one arm out, I knew I could get myself free and then Elliot and I could run out the back door, but they tied me up real tight. I didn’t have time to think much; I couldn’t hear a fire engine on the way, and the nearest one was so far away anyway that I would have died before it got there, so I had to go. I was just jerkin’ myself around like crazy, throwin’ my weight this way and that to try and  _ do _ somethin’. Elliot was just sittin’ there, all slumped, totally not respondin’ to anythin’ that I did or said, so I knew it was up to me to get us out. I kept moving; then there was this creaking noise, and it was like a movie, where everythin’ goes slow motion for a second, and all you can do is think ‘ _ oh shit _ ’ before everythin’ happens all at once. The thing I was tied to started tippin’ forward, like right towards me, where it could smash my whole body to pieces like a bug. So I just - threw all my weight to the side, and I pretty much ripped out my shoulder since I was still tied to the fucking thing. My left leg got pinned by the ovens when they fell off the rack, and my right arm got fucked up pretty bad since it got caught under my weight when I fell. Anyway - long story very much not short - I pulled myself free, and propped the oven up enough to slide my leg out from under it. I sorta crawled over to Elliot, but even though I got him untied, he was still just sittin’ there. I was all kinds of fucked up, from falling and the oven and from the guys earlier, and the fire was like  _ right there, _ so there was zero time. So I punched him, right in the face.” 

Roy snorts, and Ed grins, wide and happy;  _ he  _ got Roy to make a stupid face and an equally stupid noise. “He snapped out of it real fast, lemme tell you. And then he kinda dragged me out the back door ‘cause I couldn’t stand up anymore and it would’ve taken way too long for me to haul myself outta there with one arm. I called Al, and Elliot called the cops. Al drove Granny’s car to come get me, and then he hauled me off to the hospital, like, immediately. Elliot said he could stay and tell the cops what happened ‘n stuff, since he didn’t get hurt that bad. I kept tellin’ Al that I was fine on the way to the hospital ‘cause I didn’t want him to worry or to make a big fuss or whatever, but he just looked at me for a second; his face was so pale, and he was grippin’ the steering wheel so tight I remember thinkin’ that his fingers were gonna pop off. Then he said: ‘Brother, there’s a bone sticking out of your leg, and your wrist is bent the wrong way. You are definitely not  _ fine _ , please shut up.’ And I just went ‘huh’ ‘cause I hadn’t even noticed.”

Roy looks a little bit like he’s trying very hard not to upchuck into one of Al’s precious potted plants. Ed gives him a light pat on the shoulder.

“I had a bunch of surgery; like - so many, you wouldn’t even believe it. I’m pretty much half metal now, but the only cool new abilities I have is not being able to go through a metal detector without setting it off and knowing when it’s raining outside without having to check the weather. Elliot kinda disappeared after that; my manager came to visit me in the hospital, and she said that Elliot had quit that night, after he talked to the cops and everythin’. I never saw him again. There were so many hospital bills, too, and I ended up havin’ to use all the money I had saved up. It didn’t even cover the whole thing, so Granny used some of her savings. I couldn’t even do one nice thing for her without fuckin’ it up - just like I always do I guess. My body - it still hurts a lot sometimes. Today really was just a bad day; sometimes I wake up and it’s just… Bad.” Ed sighs, then shrugs. “Now you’ve got basically my whole life story. Hope I didn’t scare you off completely, though I wouldn’t blame you if it did.”

Roy’s shaking his head minutely, but he’s also smiling, and Ed is helpless but to give him a smile in return. “Edward Elric, for shame. You have grossly underestimated me. It takes a lot more than that to scare me off.”

“Oh, really?” Ed says. “Guess I’ll just have to keep tellin’ you things ‘til you’ve had enough.” He fights against his own embarrassment to keep holding eye contact with Roy. Was that too forward of him? Had he been reading everything wrong? He had basically just implied that he was gonna stick around indefinitely; would Roy not like that? 

Luckily for him, after a brief moment Roy’s shocked expression melts into something that Ed thinks looks like pure, unadulterated satisfaction. 

“I guess you will.” Roy purrs. Fuckin’  _ purrs,  _ all velevety smooth and smug and  _ bastardly.  _ Ed struggles not to let Roys see the slight shiver that zig-zags up his spine. It’s probably pointless to try and hide it, though, since Ed’s eyelids flutter just so, and his lips drop open on a low, wordless sound of pleasure. This is definitely something - this thing sparking in the air between them. Roy just smirks at him, eyelids dropped low and salacious. 

Ed’s content to sit together, serene and close; most of the time Ed can’t stop moving, feels like if he stops for even a second that the shackles will close around his ankles, and he’ll get pulled down in the depths, never to return again. But for right now, with Roy’s weight pressing him down onto the couch, blanketed from head to toe in Roy’s heat and enveloped in his smell, pinned under the intensity of his gaze; Ed doesn’t feel the itch under his skin telling him to just  _ go.  _

Roy’s so,  _ so  _ close. His mouth is right there; if Ed just leans forward a little, stretches up ever so slightly, he could see if Roy’s mouth is as warm as the rest of him, if his lips are as pillow-soft as they look. Ed wants to dip in; he wants to  _ taste _ ; he wants to hear what kinds of noises Roy makes; he wants to learn what Roy’s skin feels like under his fingertips; he wants to place his heart in the palm of Roy’s hand and trust him to hold onto it with all the tenderness that his life has never awarded him. 

He has to tell Roy; if he tells Roy now, he’ll be able to push through the pain of looking at his disgusted face. If he waits any longer, has to sit through Roy being kind and considerate any more than he already has been - Ed’s not sure how long it would take him to recover from the inevitable rejection then, but he knows it won’t be pretty. It’s not that Ed couldn’t live without Roy, but Roy’s somehow managed to wiggle his way into Eds heart over the years, and he’s not ready to carve him out just yet. If Ed had his way, he never would be. At least if he tells Roy now, instead of dragging it out any longer, then they might be able to stay friends. Hopefully. 

“I - ” Ed goes to speak. Roy doesn’t let him finish. 

“Does it hurt still?” At Ed’s slightly bewildered look, Roy taps on Ed’s right hand with the pressure of a butterfly’s wing. “Are you in pain right now?”

“I - um. I mean. Yeah, a little? But I’ve had worse; it’s not really a big deal - ” 

“Hmm.” Roy says, as if that illuminates jack fuckin’ squat for Ed, and then he’s - ? Cradling Ed’s right hand in one of his own, like it’s something delicate and precious, something that should be treated with care, and he’s dipping down so Ed can’t see anything except the long line of his back hunched over (not that far, though, since Ed is definitely a comparable height to Roy; that’s a one-hundred percent scientific fact); and those are  _ definitely  _ lips on the back of his hand, and then they’re moving, trailing up to his wrist, leaving behind a blaze, a line of fever. Roy ever so gently turns his hand over until his palm is facing up, and then his pressing a sweet kiss over the spot where Ed’s pulse is beating frantically; if Roy’s gonna keep casually doing shit that rockets Ed’s heart rate through the roof out of nowhere, he’s gonna have to pay Ed’s medical bills when he faints and splits his head open on the ground or something. 

With one final press of his lips to the center of Ed’s palm, Roy sits back up straight; his cheeks look a little more flushed than they usually are, but Ed could just be imagining that. He could be imagining this whole thing, actually. He wouldn’t be surprised if this was some cruel dream invented by his brain just to torture him in a million different ways. That’s certainly more plausible than Roy being here, cherishing him, and then getting embarrassed. 

Even though Roy’s mouth is no longer tracing across Ed’s skin - which is truly so tragic - his fingers are swirling in little circles across the paper-thin skin of his wrist; Ed doubts Roy is doing it consciously, and the idea that Roy, even without thinking about it, wants to stay physically connected to Ed makes his heart leap up into his throat. 

“What can I do? To help with the pain, I mean.” Roy asks. He must see something in Ed’s face, or he just knows Ed a lot better than Ed realized, because he hastens to add, “Let me rephrase that - what do you do on days like this? What normally helps?”

“I have a heated blanket, a weighted blanket, and a hot water bottle - for my back.” Ed croaks out in a daze. Roy’s eyes should be illegal; he can’t look away. “Being warm helps the most ‘cause it relaxes all my muscles and makes the inflammation go down. I already took some pain meds earlier. Sometimes Al gets me these weed gummies, but I don’t like feeling like I’m not in control of my body ‘n shit. Baths can help a little; I mean, duh, ‘cause - warmth. I’ve got braces I can wear when I need to move, but everythin’ still hurts. Um.” He dips his head a touch, then looks up at Roy through his lashes. He can feel that the flush is back on his face. “Company helps. Sometimes. Like, mentally. You know what I mean.”

If Ed was a more confident man, he’d say that Roy looks ever so slightly smitten. 

“Where are your blankets? And the hot water bottle?” Roy asks. 

“Behind the couch - why?” Before Ed can finish asking, Roy is twisting around; he finally lets go of Ed’s hand in order to reach behind the coach, digging around for the supplies. “You don’t gotta - ”

Roy looks over his shoulder to give Ed a supremely unamused stare, so Ed snaps his mouth shut, miming locking it closed with a key and throwing it away. That at least gets a snicker from Roy.

Roy sets the bundle of pain-reducing shit onto the couch, and then he stands up. Hands on his hips, he stares at the pile with so much focus that Ed briefly entertains the thought that the fabric might accidentally set on fire from his glare alone. Ed lets him flounder for a second longer than is absolutely necessary, just for the hell of it; he does end up taking pity on him, though. 

“This one,” he pokes at the bigger of the soft lumps. “Is the weighted blanket. And the other one is the one that heats up. The hot water bottle should be wrapped up inside of it.”

Roy rustles through the folds of the electric blanket; the hot water bottle flops out onto the couch, and Roy picks it up. Once again, he just stares. Then he takes his phone out, fingers tapping on the screen at a great speed. 

“What are you doin’?” Ed inquires, head cocked to the side. 

Roy doesn’t look over at him, laser-focused on the phone screen. “I’m looking up how to use a hot water bottle.”

Ed barks out a surprised laugh. “You don’t have to do that, you dork. I can just tell you; here - gimme it; I can do it.” 

“Absolutely not.” Roy shakes his head, and hugs the bottle to his chest like Ed’s gonna rip it out of his hands any second now. “You’re not going to move an inch. Leave everything to me.” 

Ed is totally and completely enamored. He’s doomed. 

“Jeez. Okay, well. At least let me tell you what to do.”

Roy looks like he’s mulling it over. Then he nods. “Very well.”

Ed rolls his eyes, fond; ‘very well’ - who says shit like that? Is Roy secretly a fuckin’ a prince? 

“I’ve got a kettle in the kitchen; you gotta let the water cool down a little bit after it gets to boiling. The hot water bottle can’t handle water that’s boiling hot. Just take the cap off and pour water in ‘til it’s almost full after it cools some; after you’re done you gotta, like, press on the sides a little to get out all the air trapped inside. Then just put the cap back on, and you’re good to go. I’ve got a - there’s a cover for it somewhere, but. Nevermind. Don’t worry about it.”

“No - I’ll get it. Do you know where it is?”

“Um. I think - my room? The bottom drawer of my dresser. It’s, um.” Ed’s blushing again; fuck him. “Al got it for me. It looks like a cat. It’s orange. Lemme just go get it; it’ll only take a sec.”

Roy darts over, and pushes Ed back down on the couch with a firm but gentle palm in the center of his chest. “You’re not very good at listening are you?”

“Hey!” Ed yells, mildly affronted. Roy ignores him, because he’s a little shit (takes one to know one, Al would say). 

“Don’t move.” Ed scoffs, so Roy nudges him with the hand still on his chest. “I mean it! Just sit tight; I’ll be back in a jiffy.” 

Ed scoffs again, and, once again, Roy ignores him. He straightens up, goes to pivot on his heel, and then obviously thinks better of it. And then he has the fucking  _ audacity  _ to flick Ed right between the eyes. Ed squawks in indignation, but Roy just smirks at him and saunters away. 

Today has been so unfair. 

He can hear Roy moving around in his room - and isn’t Roy in his bedroom an image that Ed desperately wants to see and maybe wallow in for hours. Days. Years. There’s a not-so-insignificant part of him that wants to go after Roy just to be contrary, but there’s an even bigger part of him that’s in pain and thinks moving at all sounds like the worst idea on the planet. There’s also a part of him that he wants to smother that wants to please Roy; that part can suck major eggs. 

Instead of getting up, he takes this opportunity to check his phone and answer the text from Al that’s waiting for him. 

_ Hi Brother! This is my obligatory text making sure you’ve eaten today, and also begging you to please remember to water the plants. Also, drink some water. Love you! _ There’s four of the same heart-with-the-arrow-through-it emojis at the end of the text. 

Ed scoffs - he’d watered the plants yesterday because he’s an excellent older brother and plant-sitter thank you very much - but he can’t stop the smile from pulling at his mouth. Al’s the best person on the planet, and he worried about Ed way too much. 

_ i watered them yesterday mother hen !!!! sheesh try trusting ur big bro every once and a while why dont u. hows the conference btw?? everything going okay???? u need me to beat anyone up for u ??????? luv u too nerd,  _ Ed writes back. The joke is that Al is way bigger than Ed, and he’s deceptively strong for someone who looks like he knits sweaters for old ladies in his free time - which, actually, is probably something that Al has done, now that Ed’s thinking about it. The point is: Al could most likely handle anyone without Ed’s help, but it’s not like he ever actually  _ would.  _ He’s too damn polite.

Al responds almost immediately, which just proves Ed’s point about his over-worrying. 

_ I do trust you !!! Just not as much with my plants or anything else that’s living. The conference is going great! I’m learning so much and meeting so many nice people, so you can put your fists away, brother. Everyone here is doing such amazing things!!! How are you doing though? Is everything okay there? I can always come back early, don’t forget! _

_ U !! r doing amazing stuff, al, _ Ed types out.  _ don’t sell urself short. im fine, things are normal, do NOT come back early or i’ll sneak into ur room at night and pinch all ur toes. uve been formally warned _

_ Hey,  _ Al writes back, because apparently he can sense when Ed’s holding information back from, like, a 15 hour drive away.  _ Wasn’t Roy supposed to come over today? How’s that going ;)? _

Ed’s in the process of telling Al exactly where he can shove that stupid fucking winky face when Roy waltzes over to the living room from the kitchen; Ed hadn’t even noticed him go from his bedroom to the kitchen. He must have been more absorbed in texting Al. Roy looks very triumphant and smug as he holds the hot water bottle out to Ed, cover and all.

“Here you go. I think I did it correctly, but if I didn’t please let me know. If it’s not hot enough I can try again.” Roy stands there, hot water bottle presented to Ed, like he does this kind of shit every day; like it’s no big deal to be taking care of your coworker-turned-friend-maybe like this. 

Ed is more than a little dumbfounded by everything Roy’s done today, so he does the only thing he can do: he accepts the hot water bottle, and silently situates it behind him so it’s pressed up against the back of his right shoulder, where his muscles tend to spasm the most. 

The relief is instantaneous, and Ed can’t help but to melt into the heat and groan under his breath. He tips his head back, eyes sliding shut; he has to swallow back a little moan.  _ Fuck _ , does that feel good right now. He gets it together enough a little while later to act like a regular person again; as regular of a person as he’s capable of being, anyway. When his eyes open again he immediately locks eyes with Roy, who’s looking a little - pained? 

Ed wants to ask Roy if he’s okay, but, like usual, Roy doesn’t give him the chance. Roy clears his throat, and then he shuffles over a little, stopping in front of the pile of blankets. “W-which,” Roy clears his throat delicately; are his cheeks a little red? Ed is bewildered by this change in behavior. “Which one goes first?”

“The one with the cord; it’s the one that heats up. Gotta be plugged in first, though.” 

“Cool, got it. Let me just…” Roy turns in a circle, presumably looking around for the nearest outlet. Once he spots it, letting out a pleased little humming sound, he plugs the cord in and then carries the blanket over to Ed. He drapes it over him carefully, like Ed will shatter if Roy brushes against him too hard. Ed wants to be annoyed, and he kind of is ‘cause he’s not frail, but it’s also kind of nice to be taken care of by someone besides Winry or Al. Someone who doesn’t have a familial obligation to care about him. 

Ed wriggles his fingers free of his new blanket burrito to try and turn the dial up for the heat settings; in a literal nanosecond Roy is slapping his fingers and then tucking his arms firmer under his fleece cage. Ed yelps - what in the everloving fuck is going on right now. 

He says exactly that to Roy. “What in the  _ everloving fuck  _ was that for,  _ Roy _ ?”

“I told you to stay still! You said being warm eases the pain a little; you’re not going to get warm by leaving a hole by your arms for the cold air to come in through, are you?” Okay, well that’s. That’s relatively sound logic, but that still doesn’t mean it’s okay for Roy to whack at him. He takes back everything he thought about Roy treating him delicately. 

“I was just gonna turn the heat up.” Ed scowls. Roy blinks at him, all cow-eyed and innocent like he hadn’t just smacked away what was left of Ed’s poor dignity. 

“I can do that for you! What level would you like it on?” Roy’s hand is hovering over the little remote, and he’s so  _ close.  _ Ed should get a medal for surviving this many up-close and personal encounters with Roy Mustang in one day. His hair is falling in soft little wisps against his eyebrows; Ed’s thankful his hands have been restrained under the blanket otherwise he might have tried to do something stupid like brush that hair off of Roy’s forehead.

“Medium.” Ed grumbles. Roy’s jaw is so nice from this angle; well, it’s nice from all angles, really, but it looks especially strong from down here. Does it count as staring if Ed literally can’t tear his eyes away? He hopes not. “...Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.” Roy’s laying the weighted blanket over Ed now, and the way he’s looking at Ed is so tender. Ed’s heart is bleeding; he’s cut open, flayed and raw under Roy’s gaze. The weight of the blanket is familiar and welcome; it pulls Ed down, quiets the cacophony of hurt radiating out from his bones, soothes the frantic flittering of his thoughts. “Is that okay? Do you feel okay?”

“I think I like you a lot.” Is what comes bursting out of Ed’s mouth instead of, like, literally anything else. Fuck.  _ Fuck.  _ “ _ Shit  _ \- that’s not what - I didn’t mean to say that. I was gonna say that differently; fuck, please forget I said anythin’. I’ve never said anythin’ in my life,  _ ever, _ and I definitely didn’t just say that to you. If you don’t mind - I’m jus’ gonna go die of embarrassment in some place dark and not here. Tell Al I love him, please. God, fuck me.” 

Ed valiantly tries to burrow his way into the blankets surrounding him; maybe if he stays buried under them long enough, then any higher power might take pity on him and let him suffocate. This is the  _ worst _ ; Ed’s stomach and chest have been overrun by a rampage of butterflies, and his face is on fucking  _ fire  _ and - is Roy laughing? Okay, scratch that.  _ Now _ this is the worst. 

Ed wants to poke his head out of his cocoon so that he can send Roy his most fearsome glare, or many even to land a swift kick on his ass, but also he desperately doesn’t want to  _ watch  _ Roy laugh at his feelings. There’s already a tight ball of dread and hurt and shame crashing with all the weight of an anvil through his heart and landing somewhere around his stomach. His face is getting all hot again, equal parts embarrassment and pure anger as Roy won’t quit laughing. 

He knew, fundamentally, that Roy can be a huge dick, but usually he only treats people with no respect when they’ve done something bad; and Ed didn’t think his stupid feelings for Roy qualified as bad, even if Roy didn’t feel anything for him back. Obviously he was wrong; this was a mistake. Ed was lulled into some false sense of security by Roy being so fucking nice to him, but obviously he got Roy’s politeness all jumbled up. Like always, Ed must have read the room wrong and twisted Roy’s genuine kindness into something all the better to delude himself with. Of course Roy wouldn’t like him back; how could Ed have been so  _ stupid _ as to think Roy - funny, intelligent, hot as hell,  _ Roy  _ \- would look at Ed - scarred, orphan, fuck up, Ed - and see something that he could want, could craft a future with. 

Roy’s still laughing, though it’s gone muffled, like his hands are covering his face. Ed’s not gonna look to see if he’s right, ‘cause he might not be the best at taking care of himself, but he does have some preservation instincts left. A smidgen of them. And looking at Roy right now when the hurt from rejection is spreading through his body, a dread that’s sinking into his very bones - that just seems like an extremely bad idea. 

Regardless of Ed’s obvious stupidity, though, he thinks that he’s owed some human fucking decency here, and he can’t just let Roy sit there and laugh at him. This is his fucking apartment, for one; for another, there’s gonna be some other poor sad sap just like Ed someday who’ll fall in love with Roy despite the fact that he didn’t deserve to, and Roy obviously needs to be taught a lesson or two on how to let people down without crushing their hearts into smithereens with his bare fist. Also, Ed still has to work with the bastard, and he’s not gonna let down the whole team and the people outside the lab who rely on their research to do good for their lives just ‘cause his heart is turning to goop in his chest. 

He worked hard for this goddamn life, and he’s not gonna throw it away, not even for the first person who’s made Ed feel slightly adored in  _ years.  _

“Okay, like. I know it sure is funny that someone like me would hope that perfect Roy friggin’ Mustang likes me back. And you obviously don’t think that highly of me, but I’m still a person, and I still have  _ feelings _ , you  _ dick. _ ” Ed makes sure to speak loud enough that his voice will penetrate Roy’s laughter - which is tilting towards positively crazed - despite the croak invading his throat. Ed certainly does not leave his little blanket cave - it’s the only line of protection he has between him and Roy - so he doesn’t know what Roy’s face looks like right now, but he does hear Roy’s laughter cut off as soon as Ed starts speaking, and the sharp breath that Roy sucks in about halfway through. 

The silence is vociferous; it presses in on Ed, an all-consuming darkness that threatens to shake him apart maybe permanently. Ed’s always hated the quiet; it sounds too much like abandonment feels. It’s all Ed can do to curl in on himself tighter, though his bones and muscles immediately tell him how much they don’t like that. 

Suddenly, Roy’s shivering out an explosive gasp, like someone just slotted a knife in the vulnerable space between his ribs. “Ed,  _ no,  _ you’re not - I don’t - ” He stops, and then he makes this desperate, frustrated whining sound from deep in his throat. All of a sudden Ed feels very out of his element. “Ed, can you - would you please look at me?”

That makes Ed snort. As  _ if.  _ “No.” His voice sounds gruff to his own ears, defensive and terse. 

Roy’s sigh is shaky, though Ed doesn’t know why  _ he  _ would be the one shaking; Ed’s body is the one vibrating with the force of Roy’s rejection. 

“Ed,” Roy pleads. “Please. I need to… I want to see you. I want to look you in the eyes,  _ please _ .”

Ed, to his own credit, hesitates for a moment longer, but then. Well. He’s never said he wasn’t exceedingly weak for the desperate begging of pretty men, even when they’ve just spit on and stomped all over him. 

So, he pulls the blankets down and turns his head just enough to train his eyes on Roy. He doesn’t reveal more than the tip of his nose, and he definitely doesn’t make eye contact. Roy’s whole face feels off limits, actually, so Ed glares at Roy’s shoulder something fierce. He tries not to think about how broad and steady they look, at which he fails miserably. 

Ed is so ready for this day to be over. 

“Edward.” Now that certainly gets Ed’s attention; no one ever calls him by his full first name, except for Al when Ed’s being particularly annoying. “The day we met - do you remember the first thing you said to me?”

Ed is very suspicious of this whole -  _ thing  _ that Roy’s trying to pull right now. He nudges the blankets down again, enough to uncover his mouth. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

Roy’s sigh is exasperated, but if Ed lets himself indulge he can imagine it sounds more fond than anything else. He’s not going to do that. “Just - please?”

Ed rolls his eyes and grumbles, “I said, ‘Hey, the name’s Edward, but everyone just calls me Ed ‘cause Edward makes me sound like some kind of wrinkly old guy. I’m the new guy, and I’ve heard that I’m the biggest pain in the ass that people have ever known, but I’m not gonna apologize for gettin’ shit done. Let’s go do some fuckin’ good, yeah?’ Or somethin’ like that.” It was exactly like that. Ed remembers because Roy, after a moment of stunned silence with his hand just dangling outstretched and waiting for a handshake that Ed would never give, had burst into full body laughter, a star exploding bright and mesmerizing right in front of Ed; and Ed had known immediately that he was gonna be so fucked, if he wasn’t already.

“I don’t think you knew - or know, rather, but I had been feeling rather... disillusioned with everything at that point. It had been years of constant fighting, and I felt like I was just wasting away behind a desk. It was starting to get harder and harder to remember why I was working so hard, to remember what we were all fighting for. It’s difficult, when the degree of separation between you and the general public gets bigger and bigger with each promotion; there’s not much to tie you back down to Earth anymore. But then you just - you swept into the lab, into my team, into my  _ life _ , all golden and breath-taking and so full of gorgeous determination. I don’t have the vocabulary to properly tell you how much of an inspiration you are, Ed. I know you don’t believe me, and that you will probably never know how deeply you touch everyone around you, but you  _ do,  _ Ed. You are so intensely, fundamentally, bighearted and selfless; you reminded me of what the world can be. I wish everyone could see the world as you do, could see all its infinite potential like you do. I also - selfishly - wish you could see yourself the way everyone sees you, the way I see you. I think - I think the world of you, Ed. I think the universe of you; every time I think I can’t feel anything new for you, that I’ve carefully logged everything there is to know about you - you just have to go and prove me wrong because that’s who you are. You are infinite, and I am helpless but to be pulled into your orbit. My metaphors are getting a little mixed up, my apologies. Regardless, what I’m trying to say is the same.”

Roy takes a deep breath; Ed’s jealous, because it feels like Roy stole all of his oxygen when Ed wasn’t looking. Ed’s heart is barreling through his chest, cracking his ribs and decimating everything in its path. He doesn’t want to dare to let himself hope, but all of that sure sounds like Roy might like him back, after all. Ed’s no longer tethered to his own body; he’s drifting up towards the ceiling, bobbing like a balloon. That explains why he’s looking right at Roy’s eyes suddenly, making desperate, helpless eye contact. Roy looks completely earnest, and there’s grim determination scrawled in the tightness of his brow. 

“I wasn’t trying to make fun of your feelings earlier, Ed; I’m really sorry. I just couldn’t believe that…” Roy pauses, swipes his tongue over his lips - which is _devastating_ , even from Ed’s current position as some sort of non-corporeal being and should also be illegal - then he starts again. “I have spent the past year convincing myself that you would never return my feelings. Sometimes I thought that - that you treated me differently, but you never responded to my flirting, so I was trying to stop myself from hoping anymore that you would… I was incredibly shocked to hear that you felt the same way. I hope I didn’t ruin my chances.”

Roy’s smiling tightly, but he looks… Hopeful? Ed feels like there’s a wrench lodged somewhere in his brain that’s keeping the cogs from turning properly; none of Roy’s words are sticking; they’re all floating around, an amorphous blob of sanguine emotions. 

“Your… Feelings?” Ed asks dumbly, because this is just a little too much for him right now. Roy has the decency to not look at him like he’s an idiot. 

Roy opens his mouth like he’s going to respond, but then something he said finally registers, and Ed’s sitting up a little frantically, eyes blown wide open. “Hold up - wait a fuckin’ second. Did you just say you’ve been flirting with me?” 

Roy has the fucking  _ gall _ to look amused. Like Ed is some cute, entertaining thing. “Yes, Ed. It’s been months now. I am fairly certain that Kain and Jean have a betting pool about when you would notice.”

Ed’s mouth dropped open fully at some point while Roy was speaking, and he’s not certain he knows how to close it. His entire brain is devoted to the same, looping thought:  _ Roy’s been flirting with him. Roy thinks he’s worth flirting with - for literal months. Roy might very well possibly want to get into his pants and maybe his heart, too.  _

Unfortunately for Ed’s dignity, instead of speaking like a normal person, he lets out a high-pitched squeaking sound. Ed’s sure his face is turning a wonderful shade of vermillion; he must be dreaming right now because there’s no way in hell Roy’s been flirting with him for  _ months.  _ Why wouldn’t he just stop when Ed didn’t respond?

“You… For months?” Ed sounds as breathless as he feels. Roy looks fucking charmed with Ed’s obliviousness, and he really doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Indeed.” Roy nods sagely; Ed just makes a helpless whimpering sound and succumbs to the confusing mix of embarrassment, befuddlement, and pure, giddy joy tumbling through him. 

“But - why?” Ed asks, more than a little desperately. 

Roy hasn’t stopped looking so damn amused for even a second. When he smiles, though, it turns his whole face soft and warm. Ed’s breath catches in his throat on the adoration he doesn’t think he’s imagining in Roy’s eyes. “I really, really like you. I think, if given the chance, I could fall deeply in love with you without lifting a finger; I desperately want to.”

Ed fears he’s in danger of passing out.

“Also,” Roy’s smirk makes the faux innocence in his voice sound that much more contrived. “The faces you make when you’re flustered are just darling.”

That pierces through the thick fog of shock blocking Ed’s brain. 

“I’m not - fuck you Roy; I’m not fuckin’  _ darling. _ ” Ed snarls, though the blush still burning bright on his face probably gives away the way the tentative happiness he’s feeling. 

“Oh, but I beg to differ.” Roy’s back to being all smug and shit, and while that’s certainly familiar territory for Ed, the content of Roy’s teasing is anything but. “Your cheeks get delightfully red, and you get the cutest pout - yes exactly like that!”

He’s laughing again, but this time it makes Ed’s insides feel all jumbled up in the best of ways. He’s not gonna let Roy know that, though. “I don’t pout, you bastard! I  _ scowl. _ ” Ed does just that and extracts a hand from his shield of blankets in order to punch Roy on the arm. Roy dodges, but just barely. 

“Ah yes - how could I be so mistaken. The famed Edward Elric Scowl, instilling fear into the hearts of men since his first day on Earth. My apologies.” 

“Damn straight. Never forget it.” Ed puffs his chest out, nose in the air; he holds that pose for an admirable few seconds before him and Roy both dissolve into snickers. 

He’s so absorbed in the familiar warmth of joking around that he almost forgets all the feelings Roy had just laid bare on the table for him. That is, until Roy’s laughs drop off, and his smile takes on a more cautious look. 

“You don’t owe me anything, and if you say no it won’t change my opinion of you at all, but. Edward Elric I would be so incredibly honored if I got the chance to take you on a date.” Roy looks nervous, like Ed hadn’t told Roy he has feelings for him 15 minutes ago, like there’s a chance in this entire universe that Ed would turn him down. 

Ed pulls himself up and shakes the blankets off his shoulders so that he can face Roy with the seriousness of a soldier marching into battle. Roy deserves to know that Ed would never treat his feelings or their relationship - just thinking about him and Roy and that word in a non-platonic context is giving him goosebumps - as if they don’t hold the weight of the world, because they  _ do.  _

“Roy Mustang,” Ed holds direct eye contact with Roy as he speaks, no matter how much he wants to turn away and make this easier, less intimate. “Of fucking course I’ll go on a date with you; I’ll go on infinite dates with you. I’ll date you so freakin’ hard, you’re not gonna know what hit you.”

Roy positively beams, and the tension Ed hadn’t noticed before then seeps out of his shoulders. He reaches out like he’s going to scoop Ed up into a hug, but he stops short, like he’s questioning how okay that would be. Ed rolls his eyes, but there’s no hiding the fond smile on his face; he wouldn’t want to. 

“C'mere, dork.” He makes grabby hands, and Roy crashes into his embrace with the enthusiasm of a puppy greeting their owner at the door. Ed could surely get used to this. 

Roy doesn’t squeeze him too hard, though, which Ed realizes is probably because he’s worried about hurting Ed; it shouldn’t shock and awe him but it does, damnit. Roy treats Ed like something that deserves to be loved and cared for, and Ed’s heart is fit to burst because of it. He desperately wants to press a kiss to the hair tickling his nose, and then he remembers that he  _ can,  _ so that’s exactly what he does. The answering sweet, contented noise that Roy makes sends a starburst of giddiness exploding through Ed. 

He’d been so overjoyed, though, that he'd almost forgotten what Roy dating him would mean - what it would look like, logistically, and the doubt creeps in before he can stop it. 

“Roy - before you. Before you get too caught up on the idea of datin’ me, I need to make sure you know that this is my reality.” Ed’s proud that his voice doesn’t bely the full extent of his anxiety, but he’s still so afraid. He’s afraid that he just got a taste of what life could be like for him as a person that’s treasured, only to have it be wrenched out of his hands before it can all really begin. 

Roy, for his part, shoots him a confused look when he leans back. 

Ed muscles through, like he always does. “The pain’s always here, and it makes me sad and mean a lot. It’s not somethin’ you can fix, not entirely, and it’s never gonna just go away. I signed this contract for life, and I don’t expect you to wanna sign it with me. I just … if you think it’s gonna be too much, could you go ahead and tell me now?”

“Ed - of course I know that.” Roy’s voice sure has been sounding this particular brand of upset today, huh. He’s also cupping Ed’s face, making sure he can’t squirrel away from Roy.’s gaze Roy’s eyes are so deep; Ed just wants to fall right in. Roy sighs, then he tips his head forward until they’re connected, hands to jaw and forehead to forehead. “I would never try to change you. I don’t like that you hurt so much, but it’s a fact of life for you, and I know that. I promise. I don’t understand what it’s like, but I promise to do my best; to hear you, and do everything in my power to alleviate some of the pain when possible. I want to hold your hand in public, go on picnics under the stars, whisper in your ear about how good you look while we’re at work just to watch you blush. I also want to be there to offer you a hand, to cook you meals on good  _ and  _ bad days, to refill your hot water bottle, to braid your hair, to give you massages. Edward Elric, I swear to you; I want it all with you. I want every single piece of you, as it is. I am committed to you, if you’ll have me.”

Ed’s speechless; Roy is everything. Roy is so much more than Ed could have ever asked for - could have ever  _ hoped  _ for. Ed wants to fall for him forever; he never wants to touch the ground again. 

He reaches up to squeeze Roy’s hand with his trembling left one. He can’t do much with his right, still, but he can sweep the backs of his knuckles across the tender skin under Roy’s eye. Roy had just poured his entire heart out for Ed. Ed’s never been this damn lucky in his entire life, and he needs Roy to know how much he appreciates him, how he would give just about the entire fucking world to make Roy smile. 

Ed fights to find his words, but he doesn’t have to try in order to give Roy a wide, dazzled smile. “‘Kay.” He says. “I trust you. M’sorry for doubting you. I promise to try my hardest for you, too, ‘cause you deserve the whole fuckin’ universe, Roy.”

Roy laughs, helpless, like he’s a total goner but he doesn’t care. He pulls Ed into another warm embrace, cradling Ed’s head. “You’re so lovely, Ed. The loveliest. I’m exceedingly lucky to get to be by your side.”

Ed’s thankful his face is pressed tight to the curve of Roy’s neck, ‘cause he’s certain he’s gone all brilliant red again. He grumbles wordlessly in protest, but he knows there’s a dopey, lovesick smile on his face. Roy has that effect on him. 

And then Ed remembers that there’s something he’s been wanting to do since just about the first 30 minutes working with Roy, and that now is absolutely a good time to ask about trying it out. He better get to it while he has, like, any confidence left. 

“Hey,” Ed nudges Roy with an elbow in the ribs just hard enough to get Roy to pull back a little. Ed gives into the temptation and sweeps his left hand through Roy’s stupid soft hair, smiling tender and mushy when Roy leans into the touch. “Can I kiss you?”

“Yes, absolutely.” Roy says immediately, looking incredibly delighted at that prospect. “Please do; I would like that really very much.”

Ed would smirk, if the butterflies in his stomach weren’t tearing through its lining something vicious. He’s about to kiss Roy Mustang. Holy  _ shit  _ what kind of good did he do in a past life to be able to do this? Ed must have been some kinda hero or something. He does smile up at Roy, though, just so he knows Ed is equally as excited for this. Then he’s leaning forward, eyes falling closed, Roy’s breath on his face and his scent filling his nose. 

Roy kisses him sweet and tender, like he’s trying to pour his feelings directly into Ed’s veins. His lips are so, so soft against Ed’s, and they’re pressed to his with an ease that snatches the breath right from Ed’s lungs. Roy leans in closer, lets his weight push their bodies together, shoulder to hip. Their lips slide and slot together, serene, like this is something they do every day; Ed could so get used to this. 

Roy’s hand is in his hair, curling in the ends of his ponytail, and then Roy’s  _ groaning.  _ He’s pulling back, too, breathing hot against Ed’s mouth. Ed can’t help the disgruntled sound that slips out of him, but he can pinch Roy over his ribs when he feels that smirk on his lips. 

“You have,” Roy breathes out on a sigh, voice gone all toe-curlingly dark-chocolate deep and velvet smooth. Ed wants his mouth back on his, like, right this instant. “The most  _ wonderful  _ hair. I just want to - ” His voice is edging on a groan, and Ed’s gonna have to save the exploration of Roy’s thing for his hair for a later date, because Roy’s fingers are curling in his hair and giving a little tug, just enough to send a tingle through his scalp. And, evidently, just enough for a quiet moan to bubble up out of him. 

Roy’s silent, which makes Ed’s eyes flutter open, so that he can tell if he did something wrong. Roy, though, is staring at him like he hung the moon and stairs up at night, like he’s some sort of treasure. Ed darts forward and gets to work kissing that look off Roy’s face, simply because he can. 

Roy buries his hand further in Ed’s hair, a gentle yet constant pull on Ed’s scalp that has him gasping for air in-between kisses, every breath edging on a moan. Ed nips Roy’s bottom lip in retaliation, and he basks in the yelp he gets for his troubles; the sound bleeds into something deeper, something more raw, and Ed’s body heats with it. The skin of Roy’s jaw is smooth and deliciously warm under Ed’s fingertips, so he lets his hand roam free, curling over Roy’s ear and toying with the silk of Roy’s hair. 

Roy drinks Ed in, luxuriates in him like one sips slowly at a fine, aged wine. The hand that’s not in Ed’s hair is looped around his waist, stroking up and down Ed’s side and leaving him trembling in its wake. Roy’s tongue is slick and delicious against his; Roy sucks the air from his lungs and then breathes it back in, slow fire that curls and licks, devours Ed’s defenses until he’s laid completely bare. Ed is blooming white hot for Roy, just for Roy, giving Roy everything he has and more. 

If they keep going, Ed might just melt through the floor and drip into his neighbor’s apartment; he’s pretty sure that they wouldn’t appreciate that very much, so he surges in for one last devastatingly transcendent kiss, and then he pulls back to look at Roy. The sound the parting of their lips makes into the still of his living room is utterly sinful; it sends a shiver down his spine, and he knows Roy felt it with the way they’re squished as close together as they can be. He would be embarrassed, but it gets him a delighted smile from Roy and a kiss to his cheek, so. It’s not so bad. 

“Um. Wow.” Ed has to clear his throat, blink away some of the dazed stars clogging up his field of vision. Roy is a dream in front of him, hair mussed and lips kiss-reddened. Ed wants to dive back in, wants to  _ bite _ , wants to make Roy lose the control he so carefully clings to. Roy’s eyes are fixated on his mouth, too, and Ed’s just about decided that his neighbors can just deal with his melted remains when his stomach rumbles, loud and sudden. Roy barks out a surprised, belly-deep laugh and Ed falls into laughter with him, filled to max capacity with glittery joy. 

“Wow, indeed.” Roy presses a quick kiss to the tip of Ed’s nose, ‘cause he’s sappy as shit. Ed lets him, ‘cause he’s just as heart-eyed as Roy is. Ed’s eyes cross trying to watch him do it. “I think that we should order some food, then start on what I initially came over for. Riza will murder us if we don’t have it done by Monday, and you know she’ll never be caught.” Oh, fuck; Ed had completely forgotten that they were supposed to get some work done today. Roy doesn’t look too chagrined, though, so Ed won’t let himself feel too bad about it. Roy keeps talking. “And then, after we’re done, we can watch a shitty movie, and I can give you an excellent, patented Roy Mustang Massage. Does that sound okay?”

The hand in Ed’s hair has since migrated to stroking his cheek, and Ed nuzzles into its warmth. He doesn’t even try to mask his eager grin. “I think,” Ed presses a kiss to the center of Roy’s palm, if only to hear the minute hitch in his breath. “You’re a genius.” Roy’s smile is absolutely blinding. 


End file.
